Supreme Court pulls up health ministry for missed 2005 AIDS drug target

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1) Court asks why India missed 2005 AIDS drug target

2) Supreme Court pulls up health ministry

1) Court asks why India missed 2005 AIDS drug target

31 Aug 2006 14:29:32 GMT

NEW DELHI, Aug 31 (Reuters) - India's top court asked the government

on Thursday to explain why it had failed to meet its target of

providing free drugs for 100,000 HIV-positive people by 2005 and on

what basis it delayed the objective by two years.

" What's the difficulty? Why was the target year shifted? " the three-

member bench, headed by the Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal,

asked the federal government.

India is home to 5.7 million people living with AIDS-causing HIV,

more than any other country in the world, according to United

Nations estimates.

Several Indian HIV/AIDS non-government groups complained to the

court on Thursday that not only was India's target inadequate, but

it was not even being met.

At their request, the court has asked the government to explain by

end-September why the 100,000 target had been postponed twice, most

recently to 2007, and how it decided on the original 100,000 target.

Only about 50,000 HIV-positive Indians are currently believed to be

receiving life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs free of charge.

India's National AIDS Control Organisation says a major obstacle in

giving free drugs to more HIV-positive people is that many live in

far-flung rural areas where it is difficult to provide regular

treatment.

India's missing of the free anti-retroviral drug target is despite

the country being one of the world's largest suppliers of generic

ARV drugs to the developing world, said the NGOs -- Sahara House,

Common Cause, Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust and Voluntary Health

Association of Punjab.

(Reporting by Samanwaya Routray; editing by Kamil Zaheer; writing by

; New Delhi Newsroom: +91-11-4178-1000)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B172083.htm

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2) Supreme Court pulls up health ministry

Friday, September 1st, 2006

New Delhi - The Supreme Court Thursday pulled up the health ministry

for its failure to achieve the target to provide anti-retroviral

treatment (ART) to 100,000 HIV-positive patients by the end of 2005.

Not satisfied with the statement that the government would be able

to achieve the target only by the end of 2007, a bench comprising

Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, Justice C.K. Thakker and Justice P.K.

Balasubramanyan sought an explanation from the ministry in two weeks

giving reasons for the failure.

The petitioners were directed to give their suggestions in two weeks.

The bench was hearing a batch of cases filed by the Voluntary Health

Association of Punjab and others seeking a direction to the central

government and the states to provide AIDS victims the right to

treatment under the public health system.

The petitioners contended that in the last few years, with the

development of a new class of medicine called the anti-retroviral

drugs, AIDS had ceased to be a dreadful fatal disease.

According to them, the ART does not cure the patient completely but

suppresses viral replications, slows or halts disease progression

restoring the balance within the immune system, prolongs longevity

in AIDS cases and improves quality of life.

Effective ART regimens have shown success in terms of delaying the

onset of AIDS and have transformed the common conception about HIV

from being a `virtual death sentence' to a chronic but manageable

illness.

They said that the government was not including the treatment by

these life-saving drugs as part of the public health system that

caters to the needs of poor people.

In response to the court direction, the central government filed a

status report stating that with effect from April 1, 2004 free ART

treatment was being provided to the HIV-positive patients.

The report said that the programme was launched in eight government

hospitals in six prevalence states - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Manipur, Nagaland and Delhi.

At present 54 National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) ART centres

were providing free ART. Moreover, governments of Kerala, Jharkhand

and Jammu and Kashmir were supporting nine centres.

A total of 36,110 patients were receiving free ART at the NACO ART

centres as on July 31.

http://indiaenews.com/2006-09/20630-supreme-court-pulls-health-

ministry.htm