India
urged to scale up treatment for HIV positive mothers
Lauding India's efforts in providing treatment to
HIV affected people, UNAIDS on
Thursday urged the country to scale up its healthcare services for the benefit
of HIV positive mothers and children.
"If we want zero AIDS-related deaths, India
needs massive scale up of treatment and care services. By 2015, we need at
least 15 million people on treatment world-wide," Charles Gilks, country coordinator for UNAIDS, said.
Gilks
was speaking at the summit on good practices,
innovations and impact of National AIDS Control Programme-III organised by
National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
The second day of the three-day Summit brought
together experts and community leaders who stressed on concrete strategies that
are required to strengthen care, support and treatment in the next phase of the
National HIV programme.
"We have an unfinished agenda. Stigma,
discrimination and denial faced by HIV positive people is still very
high," Aradhana Johri, Additional Secretary,
Department of AIDS, said.
While Gilks
said India should focus to improve services for pregnant mothers, Mohammed Shaukat, Deputy Director General
of NACO, said though the
number of Antiretroviral
Therapy (ART) centres increased from 107 in 2007 to 355 in 2012, HIV positive
people are accessing them at a very late stage.
"It is important for HIV positive people to
start ART soon to improve the quality of life," he said.
NACO
has directed all ART centres to provide ART for anyone who has a CD4 count of 350 from 250 earlier.
The CD4 count determines the
immunity levels of a person living with HIV.
Manoj
Paradesi, living with HIV
for 18 years, said there is an urgent need to listen to voices of the
community.
Time has come to make drug dispensing units (ART
centres) as complete Health Resource Centres which can provide quality
counselling and information to HIV positive people, he said.
Source: www.dnaindia.com
27.04.2012
Nothing great
was ever achieved without enthusiasm
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