ART to be provided at regional level

Expressbuzz, June 20, 2009

BHUBANESWAR: Faced with an increasing HIV and AIDS burden, the Orissa State AIDS Control Society (OSACS) has begun work on making anti-retro viral therapy (ART) available at the regional and community level.

From the present system of provision of ART medicines to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs) through the designated centres at the three tertiary health institutions, the MKCG Medical College and Hospital at Berhampur, SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack and VSS Medical College and Hospital at Burla along with the district headquarter hospital at Koraput, four new ART centres are soon soing to be operationalised at DHH Balasore, DHH Angul, DHH Bolangir and Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar.

But to expand the services to the grassroots, the OSACs has planned to establish Link ART centres tagged with the main ART Centres to supply medicines to PLHAs as per the advice and recommendations of the senior medical officer of the latter. The Area Hospital Aska, DHH Gajapati, DHH Rayagada, SDH Bhanjanagar, CHC Polsara and CHC Khalikote would be linked to the MKCGMCH while the DHHs at Angul, Puri, Kendrapara, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dhenkanal and Kalahandi would be attached to the SCBMCH. The DHHs at Kalahandi, Bargarh, Bolangir, Rourkela would be link ARTs of VSSMCH and Nabarangpur DHH to be linked with DHH Koraput.

The OSACs has also proposed to establish four new Community Care Centres (CCs) in the State during the current year. The Centres function at the community level providing low cost care to PLHAs.

They receive treatment for opportunistic infections, nutrition and counselling. Each CCC can attend to 10 PLHAs for a period of minimum five days and maximum 15 days.

Presently, five CCCs are functioning at Koraput, Khurda, Ganjam, Cuttack and Balasore.

By the end of April this year, the number of HIV positive persons have been estimated to be around 13,039 with Ganjam posting the highest number at 5239 and Cuttack coming second at 1815. Of the 1085 full blown AIDS cases, 388 are from Ganjam and 112 from Cuttack.

As many as 868 people have lost their lives due to AIDS with 318 from Ganjam, 68 from Kendrapara, 65 from Puri and 41 at Koraput.

According to statistics from 2002 to April this year, 77.73 percent of HIV positive cases belong to the age group of 25-49. Parent to child transmission has been recorded in 2.73 percent of the cases.

Sexual route of transmission corners the bulk with 83 percent of the cases, with parent to child transmission accounting for nine percent and infected syringes and needles 2.6 percent.