Govt to help set up homes for HIV-affected orphans

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Govt to help set up homes for HIV-affected orphans

23 Jun 2008, 0044 hrs IST, Kounteya Sinha,TNN

NEW DELHI: India has finally woken up to the plight of AIDS orphans —

those infected with HIV or those affected by it.

The National Aids Control Board (NACB), headed by Union health

secretary Naresh Dayal, has given the go ahead to the National Aids

Control Organisation (Naco) to set up care centres or orphanages

solely meant for children whose parents have died of HIV or who are

themselves infected with the deadly virus. The decision was taken at

NACB's meeting on June 11.

These homes will not only provide shelter to these children, but also

take care of their medication, clothing, informal education and

nutrition requirements. The affected children will be allowed to stay

here till they find foster parents or families who are willing to

adopt them.

To start with, Naco plans to set up 10 such homes in the high

prevalence states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra,

Karnataka and Manipur. Each home will accommodate 50 children.

Each NGO who takes up the responsibility of running these care

centres will be given an initial grant of Rs 20 lakh and subsequent

annual grant of Rs 17.5 lakh by Naco.

Naco director-general K Sujatha Rao told TOI: " By July, we will call

for applications from NGOs who want to set up and run such centres.

Naco is also tying up with Unicef and the ministry of women and child

development to identify normal orphanages where such HIV-infected

children can stay. We don't want any discrimination. "

India is home to 70,000 HIV-infected children. However, only 32,000

of them have been identified by Naco and 10,000 of them have been put

on anti-retroviral therapy (ART). The government, however, has no

estimates of AIDS orphans — who are themselves not infected but have

lost both parents to the disease.

Dr Damodar Bachani, joint director of Naco, said: " Children who have

lost both parents to AIDS do find families who are willing to adopt

them but children who are infected with the virus through mother-to-

child transmission find no takers. Even their immediate relatives

refuse to take care of them. So, such care centres for these children

were a necessity. They will be modelled along the lines of the

existing 159 Community Care Centres which provide support, care and

nutrition to adults infected with HIV. These homes will have doctors,

nurses, caretakers, teachers and dieticians. "

One out of every eight children, below the age of 15, suffering from

HIV/AIDS worldwide is in India. The country also reports 21,000 new

pediatric HIV infections every year.

A recent UNAIDS report said over 2.1 million children, under age 15,

are presently living with HIV, most of them infected before their

birth, during delivery. While around 4.2 lakh children were newly-

infected in 2007, an estimated 2.9 children under 15 died from AIDS.

Young people, aged 15-24, accounted for about 40% of the new HIV

infections in 2007.

Experts say a majority of the children living with HIV can be saved

by timely administration of pediatric ART. HIV infection progresses

more aggressively in infants than in adults. The immune system in

childhood is underdeveloped and acquiring HIV infection early in a

child's life thwarts its further development. Early treatment in the

first few months of life can dramatically improve the survival rate

of children with HIV.

(kounteya.sinha@...)

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