Fund crunch puts infants at risk

An awareness programme aimed at helping HIV pregnant women to save their babies from contracting the infection is set to die a sudden death. The programme, which had been running for decades, will be discontinued from today as National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has refused to grant funds for it to Maharashtra. Every other state in the country has, however, been granted its share of the fund.
Reshma Khan (name changed), the 27-year-old resident of Nerul gave birth to a child two months ago at JJ Hospital. But she can’t breastfeed her baby as the HIV virus in her blood might get transferred to the infant who has born without the infection.

Maharashtra ignores WHO guideline

Despite World Health Organisation’s (WHO) new guideline to provide antiretroviral therapy for everyone diagnosed with HIV regardless of CD4 cell count, state ART centers are ignoring it, a move that can lead to more deaths.
Anita Mehta, 32-year-old, resident of Thane succumbed to HIV infection last month after struggling for a year. She would have survived for a few more years had she started the treatment at an earlier stage. Like her, hundreds of HIV-infected patients die due to delay in treatment. To address this issue, WHO had on October 1, released a new guideline calling for universal antiretroviral treatment to all patients irrespective of the CD4 counts.

Condom crunch hits city, thanks to cut in budget

Ahmedabad has been grappling with condom crunch as the distribution is down by 44 per cent, revealed AMC's Aids Control Society (AMCACS) in response to an RTI plea filed by Mirror. The supply has been majorly hit across the country after NDA government slashed its budget for department of AIDS control by 22 per cent. In 2013, about 58,22,800 condoms were distributed that dipped to 32,04,206 in 2014. National Aids Control Organization (NACO) is the agency that distributes free condoms at Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) centres across the state.