Despite the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) rolling out universal treatment and opening up Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres for those who test positive, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) continue to find it hard to get initiated into treatment. One of the important reasons for this is the lack of adequate number of machines that measure CD4 cell count — a scale to measure the person’s immune system.
Karnataka, which had only 5 CD4 machines for many years, has 34 machines today. But, the State has over 3.11 lakh who have tested positive and have been pre-registered at the 64 ART centres. The number of patients, who were initiated into ART and are alive till date are over 1.48 lakh. Those registered for ART is 1.63 lakh
“However, even after five months of NACO rolling out the ‘test and treat’ policy for all, the State is not able to do the required tests like CD4 and viral load to decide on the dosage and initiate ART. This may be due to several factors, but lack of enough CD4 machines is a cause for concern. With the State facing a gigantic task of treating 3 lakh patients, it needs a minimum of 120 machines,” said health activist David Bodapati.
What is CD4 cell count?
The CD4 count is a vital parameter that will measure the person’s immune system. Before being initiated into the first line of ART, screening is done not only to identify the combination of drugs, but also to deal with the toxic multi-drug therapy and its myriad side effects.
The number of patients registered with ART centres as of March 2014 was 2,43,564. This means 68,332 patients were registered in the last three years, proving that the new infection rate has jumped by a huge number in the last few years.
“ART to all patients without restrictions is a boon to HIV positive people. But not getting the treatment for lack of CD4 machines is a curse and the worst form of denial of treatment. Now every PLHA has a right to demand initiation of ART. It not only helps my community lead a better life, but also increases the life span and the quality of life. It also prevents the patient from spreading the infection. I am a living example,” said Parveen Ahmed, a community leader and secretary of Sangama, who has been living with HIV for the last 13 years.
R.S. Gupta, NACO Deputy Director-General, who admitted that Karnataka required more machines, told The Hindu that the country has a total of 278 machines. “Karnataka has 34, but there are several high prevalent States such as Maharashtra and U.P. that have lesser number of machines. We are adding more machines and Karnataka will get eight more by March,” Dr. Gupta added.
