Despite the ‘test and treat’ policy introduced by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) last April, at least 44% of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in India are yet to get the life-saving Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART).
The ‘test and treat’ policy aimed to entitle every person who tests positive for HIV to free treatment. The move is part of the country’s National Strategic Plan for HIV for the next seven years. However, according to NACO’s data, only 11.41 lakh of the 21.4 lakh PLHIV had been initiated on ART till March 2018.
“This shows that India still has a long way to go to meet the 90-90-90 targets by 2020, which are not just milestones set by the UNAIDS but also enshrined in India’s National Health Policy (NHP 2017),” said Ishwar Gilada, president of AIDS Society of India (ASI). The 90-90-90 targets mean 90% of all PLHIV will know their HIV status, 90% of PLHIV will receive ART, and 90% of people receiving ART will have suppressed viral load to minimise transmission.
Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru to announce the two-day 11th National Conference of AIDS Society of India (ASICON 2018) from Friday, Dr. Gilada said: “India’s AIDS response is at a precarious point — new HIV infections, which have amounted to 87,580 (a decline of just 27% between 2010 and 2017) warrant us to reflect if we could have done better in preventing HIV transmission.”
Opining that partial success must not result in any complacency, Dr. Gilada said diagnosing more PLHIV and putting more people on ART was vital to achieving the targets. “We are almost the halfway to the targets, but the pace of progress in India has to be expedited to match our national ambition,” he said.
G.D. Ravindran, professor of medicine at St. John’s Medical College and co-chair of the conference, said in 2017, Karnataka had 2,47,413 PLHIV (including 1,23,821 women), and of these 1,55,411 (62.8%) were receiving ART. “AIDS-related deaths declined in Karnataka by over 60% between 2010 and 2017. Despite a decline of 46% in new HIV infections in the State, we still saw 5,008 new HIV infections in 2017,” he said.
With the theme “Breaking barriers for health, hope and healing,” ASICON 2018 will present the latest developments in diagnosis, management and prevention of HIV and associated co-infections opportunistic infections. Recent advances in vaccine, early treatment, cure research, diagnostics, and future drugs will also be discussed, Dr. Gilada said.
Poor response from students
Although the AIDS Society of India (ASI) offered 50 scholarship registrations (free) for the national conference, which starts on Friday, to postgraduate students in medical colleges affiliated to the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), there has been only one registration so far.
“This shows complacency towards HIV/AIDS in the medical fraternity, either because there is no interest in the field or because it is not a lucrative practice. Medical students should utilise such opportunities,” said Ishwar Gilada, president of AIDS Society of India.
