PHA-Exchange> India to supply free drugs to HIV-positive

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India to supply free drugs to HIV-positive
Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, November 30

The Government plans to supply free drugs to those suffering from AIDS
and to introduce legislation to tackle all aspects of the disease,
including discrimination faced by HIV-positive people.

Health Minister Sushma Swaraj Sunday announced the proposals on the eve
of World AIDS Day, saying the Rs 2 billion programme to supply
anti-retroviral drugs would be implemented from April next year in six
states with the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS.

The new law, likely to be introduced in the budget session of
Parliament in February, would make discrimination against HIV positive
people and the refusal by hospitals to treat them an offence, she told
reporters at an interaction organised by the National AIDS Control
Organisation (NACO). Swaraj and senior officials, including NACO chief
Meenakshi Dutta Ghosh, said the overall rate of increase in HIV
infections across the country was "plateauing".

Dismissing figures of HIV positive people in India disseminated by
various world bodies, Ghosh said NACO's latest survey in December 2002
had indicated there were between 3.82 million and 4.58 million people
infected by the virus.

Swaraj said the new initiative to supply anti-retroviral drugs in six
states would "go a long way in fighting this deadly disease that is
targeting our youth".

The six states are Nagaland and Manipur in the northeast, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the south and Maharashtra, the
nation's most industrialised western state. The project would cover
100,000 people in its first year, Swaraj said.

"We are moving from a uni-focal to a holistic approach in tackling
AIDS. Earlier, our programmes were prevention-centric. Now we have
added the element of care and support," she said. 

Swaraj, however, admitted the stigma associated with HIV continued to
be a problem. "The removal of this stigma is a focus area. This is a
shortcoming due to lack of awareness. When even doctors refuse to treat
AIDS patients, this stigma increases," she said.

Health ministry officials said a group headed by Health Secretary
J.V.R. Prasada Rao was talking to pharmaceutical firms to supply daily
doses of anti-retroviral drugs for less than 39 cents, the price at
which some Indian firms have agreed to sell the medicines to the
foundation headed by former US president Bill Clinton that is
spearheading a major campaign to make available AIDS treatment at low
costs.The pharmaceutical firms have, in turn, sought the same fiscal
incentives that are provided to them for
exports, the officials said.Under the Rs 2 billion programme, the
Health Ministry will provide Rs.1.13 billion for supplying the drugs
free while the rest will be spent on sophisticated equipment to monitor
the status of people taking the drugs.

Swaraj said the Finance Ministry had been asked to make a separate
allocation in the health ministry's budget for the free drugs programme
so that could be sustained.The new AIDS law, which was being framed
with the help of the Law Ministry, would cover care and support,
measures to curb discrimination and the prevalence of quacks and blood
safety, she said. "Under this law, matters like doctors refusing
treatment to HIV positive people or HIV positive children being refused
admission to schools will be made offences," she said. In recent years,
India has emerged as one of the largest suppliers of cheap
anti-retroviral drugs. Besides the Clinton Foundation, Indian
pharmaceutical companies have signed contracts to supply the drugs to
countries in Africa and the Caribbean.