Committed to taking forward HIV/AIDS prevention measures, the State government has increased the budgetary allocation for HIV prevention, care and support programmes.
State Health Secretary E.V. Ramana Reddy, who revealed this on Wednesday at an event that marked the end of Samastha project (a five-year HIV/AIDS prevention project supported by USAID funding), said the government had decided to grant travel reimbursement to 66,000 persons living with HIV who are receiving free anti-retroviral therapy (ART) medicines in Karnataka. A sum of Rs. 6 crore had been set aside for this, he said.
Samastha, a five-year project supported by USAID funding, provided care, support and treatment to people living with HIV in 15 districts of the State and five coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh.
“The project was aimed at delivering an integrated and comprehensive programme that provided HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support programme and the State government is committed to taking this forward with our own funds,” Mr. Reddy asserted. Jennifer McIntyre, US Consul-General, Chennai, who lauded the project, said the project had been successful because of the integration of all services to People Living with HIV under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
“The 27 Community Care Centres, the short-stay health care facilities for inpatients and 60 drop-in centres of Integrated Positive Prevention and Care Centres run by Karnataka Health Promotion Trust have done yeomen service to people living with HIV in Karnataka thereby enormously reducing the new infections,” she said.
Earlier, Narmada Anand, State Deputy Director, Women and Child Department, said that the government had doubled the allocation from Rs 1 crore to Rs. 2 crore in the State budget for a ‘Special Care Programme' for orphans whose parents had succumbed to the disease.
“Last year's allocation had benefited 2,100 children through cash transfers. A child with the extended families received Rs. 750 from the department which identified 8,319 children living with HIV for foster care,” she said.
C. Parthasarathy, Project Director, AP State AIDS Control Society; Balasubramaniam, founder, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement; Saroja Putran, who is living with HIV and is the president of Karnataka Network of People Living with HIV; and Vasanthamma, president of Vimukthi Women's Collective; spoke.
