The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : More care-givers needed for AIDS patients

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 10, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

More care-givers needed for AIDS patients

Staff Reporter

Experts point to mismatch between number of people with HIV/AIDS and people qualified to look after them

TAMBARAM : Pointing out to the huge mismatch between the number of people with HIV/AIDS in the country and people qualified to look after them, speakers at a function today stressed the urgent need to training more doctors.

The first batch of 15 doctors today began their one-year residential HIV/AIDS fellowship programme being conducted by the Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine, Tambaram Sanatorium, in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The one-year programme is being held at the International Training and Education Center on HIV (I-TECH).

Michael Friedman, Associate Director, CDC's Global AIDS Programme, said there were few skilled people in India to treat and look after people with HIV and AIDS, considering the country had five million people with HIV/AIDS.

Tremendous potential

The country had tremendous potential to meet the growing challenges of HIV/AIDS, but it needed to build capacity and organise its resources.

He said he hoped that such fellowship programmes would help in improving the skills of doctors treating HIV/AIDS people.

Izumi Yamamoto, India Field Manager, I-TECH, said the 15 doctors, most of them from Tamil Nadu, were the first to attend the fellowship programme and worked for both government and private hospitals.

The objectives of this programme was to produce trained doctors and to develop leaders who would be working closely among HIV/AIDS people and also to enlarge the existing strength of the Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine.

Cooperative movement

S. Rajasekaran, Superintendent, Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine, said this was the first of a public-private-corporate cooperative movement in HIV/AIDS care.

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