AIDS killing hundreds in Northeast

[Guest guest]

AIDS killing hundreds in Northeast

Guwahati, Nov 12: A large number of people in India's northeast

living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are struggling for

survival. Hundreds are dying with no access to treatment.

" People are dying regularly and suffering a lot, unable to access

Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) because such medicines are very

expensive, " said Dipak Singh, president of the Manipur Network of

Positive People (MNPP).

Two MNPP members died earlier this week allegedly due to lack of

medication. " Hundreds have died with no access to treatment, " Singh

said.

Although it is not a cure, ART is a combination of medicines that

helps a person living with HIV to fight off infections and live a

longer life.

Besides, ART also significantly impacts transmission by reducing the

viral load concentration and minimising risk of transmission to

their sexual partners.

A person living with HIV requires drugs worth about Rs 1,200-1,600 a

month and the cost doubles if someone has to go for second line

therapies depending on the nature of their immune system.

India accounts for about 5.2 million HIV-positive people, second

only to South Africa. The northeast has been declared as one of the

country's high-risk zones with close to 100,000 people infected with

the virus.

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), India's apex

government agency to combat HIV/AIDS, admitted in a recent report

that non-availability of adequate ART in the northeast was a matter

of concern.

" Lack of availability of ART and lack of research keeping in line

with issues relevant to the epidemic were identified as gaps in the

programme (for preventing the spread of HIV), " said a recent NACO,

AusAID, and UNAIDS study titled " Rapid Needs Assessment of HIV

Programme Needs in Five Northeastern States of India " .

" The demand for ART is bound to be high and needs to be addressed. "

There are no official estimates or studies done to ascertain the

number of HIV-positive people not having access to treatment.

" In Manipur we provide free ART through our roll out centres to

about 2,500 people although the number of HIV-positive people in the

state is nearly 23,000, " said Promod Kumar Singh, head of Manipur

government's AIDS Control Society.

Manipur lies on the edge of the heroin-producing " Golden Triangle "

of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and independent estimates have put the

number of regular injecting drug users in the state at close to

200,000 - a key cause of HIV infection here.

" The problem is further compounded with HIV positive people now

showing opportunistic infection like Hepatitis C. For such people

treatment is very expensive. There is no access to treatment for

thousands of such people in the northeast due to the cost factor, "

said SI Ahmed, chairman of the AIDS Prevention Society, a community

healthcare group in Assam.

" I don't think I am going to survive beyond three to five years as I

am co-infected with Hepatitis C. I am taking ART regularly but I

cannot afford to take medicines for Hepatitis C, " the MNPP president

said.

The scenario is similar in most of the northeastern states. " The

economic condition of the people in the northeast living with HIV is

so poor that many of them cannot even afford to come to the ART roll

out centres located in the towns or district headquarters to collect

the free medicines, " said C Anand, coordinator on HIV/AIDS of the

Catholic Relief Services, another community healthcare group in

Assam.

A top UN official on HIV/AIDS said inadequate access to treatment

could further aggravate the epidemic in the northeast.

" The response to the epidemic is to have proper access to

treatment, " said Noble Thalari, senior communication advisor of

UNAIDS in India

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