BELLARY: More and more people in Bellary district are coming forward to undergo HIV/AIDS test voluntarily. A combination of efforts and motivation by the field staff of two projects, Coordinated HIV/AIDS Response through Capacity Building and Awareness (CHARACA) of the United Nation's Development Programme and Sankalp of the Karnataka Health Promotion Trust have helped create a positive attitude of people towards prevention and spread of the disease.

Bellary is one of the districts in the State with high incidence of HIV/AIDS. Between 1987 and 2005, 14,589 people in the district went through HIV/AIDS tests at the Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centres (VCTCs), which were very limited then. Of them, 4,263 had tested positive.

Similarly, a total of 14,782 pregnant women underwent voluntary testing between 1987 and 2005 among which 235 were positive.

But in the year 2006, 3,360 persons got their blood tested in about 10 VCTCs set up in all the taluk headquarters in the district of whom 1,227 have tested positive.

Similarly, at the Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission Centre (PPTCT) tests conducted on 5,854 pregnant women, 86 were tested positive, official sources told The Hindu.

Statistics indicate that around 36 per cent of the total 3,360 people who got their blood tested at VCTCs were tested positive. The VCTCs help in preventing the spread of the disease by way of counselling and advise about precautionary measures to be followed.

Pregnant women

Husbands of pregnant women, testing positive, are referred to VCTCs and are advised to go to the hospital for delivery to prevent the child getting infected with the disease.

Owing to information, education and communication (IEC) activities on HIV/AIDS, people started visiting the VCTC set up in 1999 at the Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS).

Three more centres were opened at Hospet, Kudligi and Sandur in the year 2004. In 2006, five more centres were set up at Hadagali, Hagari Bommanahalli, Sirguppa apart from a Primary Health Centre at Moka and Kamalapur. All the VCTCs, except in Hagari Bommanahalli, have been functioning well.

Medical officer

A medical officer, along with a male and a female counsellor and a laboratory technician, has been made in-charge of each VCTC. Equipment for blood tests along with kits has been provided. In Hagari Bommanahalli, though the required staff is available, the centre has not been functioning for want of a building.

Very soon nine more VCTCs would be opened in Ittigi, Ujjini, Chikkajogihalli, Hampasagar, Tekkalakota, Kurgodu, Kampli, Karur and at the Bellary branch of Family Planning Association of India (FPAI).

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