[procaare] India: Agonizing wait for ARV drugs

["Indian Express" <procaare@healthnet.org>]

News: Agonizing wait for ARV drugs
The Indian Express
February 23, 2006
*******************

"IT IS OF GREAT HELP TO BOOST ONE'S IMMUNITY WHO OTHERWISE BECOME MORE
PRONE TO OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTIONS LIKE THOSE OF TB"
 
[HYDERABAD, INDIA]: For more than 50,000 AIDS patients in the State
[Andhra Pradesh] who are in need of the life saving anti-retroviral
drugs (ARV), the painful wait seems endless. The Delhi-based National
AIDS Control Organization (NACO) couldn't fulfill it's promise of
supplying ARV drugs to 50% of those who need it to stay alive.

The 3by5 initiative - a free ARV roll-out programme could meet the drug
requirement of just about 4,000 HIV+ people in the state. Further the
number of centres where ARV drugs are disbursed are limited to four,
instead of the promised nine in the state.

The drugs are given to HIV+ people who are in stage III and IV of AIDS.
The dosage of ARV drugs costs about Rs 1500 [US$ 35 approx] a month. It
is of great help to boost one's immunity who otherwise become more prone
to opportunistic infections like those of TB. HIV+ people living in
poorer parts of India often have no access to clean water and
sanitation, have malnutrition and already weak health status, and are
susceptible to a variety of infectious diseases. This places them at
greater risk of HIV-associated OIs and is believed to significantly
shorten the interval between initial HIV infection and the onset of
AIDS-related conditions. AIDS-Care-Watch campaign members in the State,
claim that government is not doing enough to keep HIV+ people alive.

Talking to Indian Express, Sukumar David of Indian Network of NGOs on
AIDS (INN), said NACO could supply ARV drugs to 15,000 people only
against 7.1 lakh [710,000] HIV+ people who needed these drugs across the
country. The second generation of ARV drugs is not available in the
country yet.

When contacted, the AP AIDS Control Society (APSACS) officials said
"There was a mad rush at our ARV outlets. So we have started supplying
the drugs only to those who are in dire need of them. In a normal
patient, the CD4 (a measure to check one's resistance) is 800. We are
supplying ARV drugs only to those whose CD4 is 200". The ARV drugs are
available at the outlets at Osmania General Hospital, Government Chest
Hospital at Erragadda, Government General Hospital at Guntur and King
George's Hospital at Vishakhapatnam.

"We did not promise to supply ARV drugs to all patients. NACO promised
to cover one lakh [100,000] patients in the country under it's AIDS
control programme. But it is not time bound" the official said.

Cross-posted from STOP-TB eForum [mailto:stop-tb@eforums.healthdev.org] 
February 23, 2006