Indian Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss passed a controversial statement by saying that the fight against AIDS will be significantly advanced when homosexuality is legalized in the country.

The minister feels that the fight against the deadly virus could be advanced if the government doesn’t consider homosexuality as a crime and encourage gays and lesbians to come out of the closet.

Presently, under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, having sex with the same gender is a criminal act as it is “against the order of the nature.”

Dr. Ramadoss, while addressing the delegates at the World AIDS meet in Mexico, expressed that this provison should be discarded if India has to make progress in combating HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Ramadoss suggested, “India’s dedicated focus on HIV prevention is fetching dividends. We are seeing the beginning of the stabilization of the HIV epidemic in India.”

Drug addiction has been found to be one of the most major risk factors for developing HIV/AIDS. Drugs and Crime’, a recent study done by United Nations Office, found out that majority of drug addicts in the Indian sub-continent are in fact HIV positive.

The report also revealed the age groups of these victims which fell between the age-group of 21 to 30 years. It was also found that just 20 percent of these addicts used condoms before having a sexual intercourse. Many of them also had multiple sex partners.

The December 2006 Epidemic update by the UNAIDS/WHO AIDS, about 39.5 million people are living with this deadly virus across the globe. About 5.2-5.7 million patients out these are from India. It has been found that of every 6,000 people HIV positive individual; 250 are from Mumbai.

The Health Minister, who seemed to be really concerned with the epidemic, said that AIDS is quite wide spread among the homosexuals and if it is legalized in the country then it would give a boost up to the HIV prevention drives.