AIDS CLAIMS 30 MILLION LIVES

New Delhi, 4 December 2006

NEW DELHI, December 5 (INFA): HIV/AIDS is the greatest health crisis the world faces today. In two decades, the pandemic has claimed nearly 30 million lives. An estimated 40 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS, 95% of them in developing countries, and 14,000 new infections occur daily.

The burden of HIV/AIDS, including the death toll among health workers, is pushing health systems to the brink of collapse. There is currently no cure for HIV infection, and viable vaccine candidates are years away, yet the development of life saving anti-retroviral drugs has brought new hope.

In high-income countries, combination antiretroviral therapy has extended and improved life for large numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS and transformed perceptions of HIV/AIDS from a fatal disease to a manageable, illness.

In 2003, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNAIDS announced the 3x5 Initiative in a global effort to rapidly increase access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in parts of the world where they are needed the most. Its core principles include urgency, equity and sustainability. Primarily, the goal of Initiative is for WHO and its partners to make the greatest possible con

Anti-retroviral therapy for those in need of care, as a human rights and within the context of a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS. The 3x5 Initiatives sets out in clear detail how life-long antiretroviral treatment can be provided to 3 million people living with HIV/AIDS in poor countries by the end of 2005.

On 30 November that year, as part of the World AIDS Day commemoration, the Government of India announced a policy commitment to provide free anti-retroviral therapy (ART) with implementation starting on 1 April 2004. The initiatives seeks to provide free ART to 100,000 patients by the year 2007 and to 188,000 patients by 2010.

This policy development is in line with the declaration of the AIDS treatment gap as a global public health emergency and the launch of the WHO/UNAIDS initiative to provide 3 million people with ART by the end of 2005. Since December 2003, WHO has extended technical support to the Government initiative in the preparation and launch of the free ART programme.

The areas of support include procurement, supply and logistics of antiretroviral drugs; technical policy and guidelines review and development; development of training curricula for physicians and nurses in ART centres.  It also includes supporting training of health providers and others; coordination with the Prevention of Parent-to-Child Transmission Programme (PPTCT) and Voluntary Counselling and testing Centres (VCTCs) programme; strengthening laboratory services and availing of CD4 testing capacity; creating collaborative partnerships with various agencies in support of the initiative; strengthening of the State AIDS Control Societies through a network of technical consultants dedicated to working on the ART programme.

Development of tools for assessment of the programe including monitoring and evaluation and data analysis; technical assistance to states, NGOs and other agencies in their work in HIV; advocacy on treatment access and the continuum of care and resource mobilization support; and expansion of strategic information in HIV including HIV drug resistance surveillance, is also included in the programme.---INFA