Thursday, Dec 11, 2003
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Andhra Pradesh
By Our Special Correspondent
"I need your best practices to test in the field and re-orient the programmes aimed at controlling the disease," the Chief Minister told representatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's while launching the project. Thanking the foundation for their support in the fight against the disease, he said that AIDS was no longer a health issue but was posing a challenge to developmental efforts as 90 per cent of those afflicted with the disease were in the productive age group. He said Andhra Pradesh was adopting multi-sectoral and multi-pronged approach to tackle the disease and increase awareness among the people, including school and college students. In fact, the AIDS awareness programme among schoolchildren was giving excellent results. As a result of the blood safety measures initiated by the Government, the transmission of the disease through transfusion had come down from 4 per cent to one per cent among the affected population. Similarly, the prevalence rate among pregnant mothers had also dropped from 2.43 per cent to1.53 per cent and among STD clinic attendees from 29 per cent (1,999) to 20 per cent this year. However, there could not be any complacency as it would result in a multiplier effect if neglected. The biggest challenge was to bring in a behavioural change among people as 90 per cent of the affected people contracted it through the sexual route. He said that there was a need for developing a sustainable model in bringing about behavioural change. It was important to promote safe sex practices among the vulnerable groups. He said the biggest advantage for Andhra Pradesh was that there were various self-help groups, including 4.7 lakh DWCRA women, who could be motivated in increasing awareness among people. The Chief Minister also declared that a pilot project for rehabilitation of children afflicted with the disease "for no fault of theirs" would be soon launched. The Health Minister, K. Sivaprasada Rao, said that India was second worst affected in terms of HIV prevalence and Andhra Pradesh, having four lakh HIV-positive cases, was among the six highly affected States. He called for coordination among NGOs and Government agencies to achieve the desired results. Under the Gates Foundation initiative, grants would be provided to four partners -- the Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, the Transport Corporation of India (TCI) Foundation and Population Services International to provide HIV prevention services to high-risk groups. Ashok Alexander, Director, Avahan, Meenakshi Datta Ghosh, Project Director, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), Bhale Rao, Principal Secretary, Health, Andhra Pradesh Government, spoke.
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