Sellappan Nirmala (born 1952 or 1953) is an Indian doctor who discovered the first case of HIV in India in 1986. In 1985, aged 32, she was working as a microbiology student in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

(Madras) and for her dissertation, began collecting blood samples and having them tested for HIV; among them were the first samples collected in India to test positive.

Career

Nirmala was raised in a traditional Indian family and encouraged to go into medical research by her husband. She had the idea of researching the virus from her mentor, Professor Suniti Solomon, in response to formal tracking of HIV in the US, which began in 1982. At the time, HIV was still a

taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

subject in the country. Blood samples had been collected from

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

and

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

without positive results. The research plan involved taking around 200 samples of blood from groups suspected to be at high risk, including 80 gathered by Nirmala. Because of a lack of testing facilities in Chennai, Solomon arranged for them to be investigated at the

Christian Medical College & Hospital Christian Medical College, Vellore, widely known as CMC, Vellore, is a private, Christian community-run medical school, hospital and research institute. This Institute includes a network of primary, secondary and tertiary care hospitals in a ...

Vellore Vellore (English: ), also spelt as Velur (), is a city and the administrative headquarters of Vellore district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Palar River in the northeastern part of Tamil Nadu and is separ ...

, away. The samples confirmed that HIV was active in India. The information was transferred to the

Indian Council of Medical Research The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, is one of the oldest and largest medical research bodies in the world. The ICMR is funded by the Gove ...

, which told the prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

health minister H. V. Hande. HIV subsequently became an epidemic in the country. Nirmala submitted her dissertation, ''Surveillance for Aids in Tamil Nadu'', in March 1987 and later joined the King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research in Chennai. She retired in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nirmala, Sellappan Indian medical writers Living people 1950s births Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century Indian medical doctors Indian medical researchers Medical doctors from Chennai Women scientists from Tamil Nadu 20th-century Indian women scientists Indian women medical doctors 20th-century women physicians