Lacking free AIDS drugs, 18 die in Bhuj

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Dear Forun,

Here is another story of " Accountability and Lack of Availability of ART to the

desired persons " .

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Lacking free AIDS drugs, 18 die in Indian town

By Rupam Jain Nair

AHMEDABAD (Reuters) - Eighteen impoverished Indians with AIDS died in one

district in western India in the last two months because the nearest state

supply of free drugs is hundreds of kilometers away, an HIV advocacy group said

on Tuesday.

" The absence of a regular supply of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs has

claimed 18 lives in the past 60 days, " said Umashanker Pandey of the Kutch

Network of Positive People in Gujarat state.

Pandey told Reuters the deaths highlighted the failure of India to reach much of

its HIV-infected population, the majority of whom live in rural and small-town

India.

The 18 patients had been either too poor or too sick to make the journey every

month on an overnight train to Ahmedabad, the state's main city, to receive

treatment and pick up their government-supplied drugs, he said.

D. M. Saxena, the head of the State AIDS Control Society, confirmed that 18

people with AIDS had recently died in and around the large town of Bhuj, and

said he was looking into the matter.

But Sujatha Rao, head of India's National AIDS Control Organization, said she

had seen no evidence that the deaths were caused by AIDS.

" I can't understand why an overnight train journey would deter them, " she said.

She added that she would be happy to authorize the opening of a

drugs-dispensing AIDS center closer to Bhuj if the state health department

thought it necessary.

India is home to an estimated 5.7 million people with HIV according to the

United Nations, the largest caseload in the world.

Amarjeet Singh, Gujarat's health secretary, said he had sent a team of

medical experts to Bhuj to investigate the deaths.

" We are meeting the HIV-positive people and will set up a medical center for

them in Bhuj, " he said.

India continues to fall far short of its own target of giving ARV drugs to

100,000 AIDS patients by 2005 -- it still only reaches 47,300 of the estimated

500,000 to 750,000 people who need the drugs.

NACO considers Gujarat to be a " moderate prevalence " state. It estimates there

are 102,684 people with the virus, but only 7,599 cases have ever been reported

in the state as of October this year.

The Gujarat Network of Positive People says a true estimate is closer to 200,000

infected people.

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Dhananjay.

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