Govt move on free ART to 1 lakh AIDS patients 'aspiration'

New Delhi, Mar 16 (UNI) Even though the government had made a commitment to provide free Anti Retro Viral Treatment to 100,000 HIV/AIDS patients by end of 2005, only 60,638 patients were give free ART in government facilities till now, Health Minister Anbumoni Ramadoss admitted in Parliament today.

Dr Ramadoss told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that the government had launched the free antroretroviral treatment on April 1, 2004. However, he said that the commitment to provide ART to 100,000 patients by the end of 2005 was ''an aspiration.'' He said the targets were approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for ART with support from the Global Fund under Round IV. Under it, 25 ART centres were to provide ART to 5000 AIDS patients by 2005, 50 centres to 25000 patients by 2006, 120 Centres to provide ART to 50,000 patients in 2007, 188 Centres to provide ART to 75000 patients by 2008 and same centres to provide ART to 125,000 patients by 2009 and 180,000 patients by 2010, he said.

In another reply, the health minister said as per estimates based on annual sentinel surveillance 2005, there were 5.2 million HIV infected persons in the country of whom 5,85,092 persons have been tested positive at government counselling and testing centres since the start of the epidemic while 1,65,276 cases have been reported by the state health authorities.

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur and Nagaland have reported HIV prevalence of more than one percent among antenatal women representing the general population. As on 2005, 140 districts in the country recorded HIV prevalence as more than one percent among antenatal women, he informed.

To control the spread of HIV/AIDS, the government is implementing the National AIDS Control Programme as a 100% centrally sponsored scheme. The strategy is based primarily on preventing new infections by focused interventions among high risk groups and also providing care, support and treatment to HIV infected person. For increasing awareness about and creating demand generation for services, emphasis is placed on IEC through mass media channels and inter-personal communications, he added.

UNI