Interactive session stresses on shelters and trained doctors
Students participate in an AIDS awareness rally in Guwahati.
Guwahati, July 16 : HIV-positive patients of the Northeast complained
about lack of adequate stock of drugs at centres administering anti-retroviral
therapy (ART) in the region during an interactive session here today.
In the Northeast, Manipur is the only state to have a second-line ART centre,
while the rest just have a first-line ART centre adding to the hardships of
HIV-positive patients.
The interactive session was organised by World Vision, India, a Christian
humanitarian organisation.
According to available statistics, Manipur has an estimated HIV population of
38,016, while the number of registered HIV cases in Nagaland is 11,224. Around
19,000 individuals in Assam are estimated to be infected by HIV, of which only
6,000 have been registered so far.
Although first-line ART centres are available in the northeastern states, the
stocks of certain medicines keep fluctuating. In such a situation, doctors often
substitute the prescribed medicines with some other drug and later, when stocks
are available, the patient is switched over to the original medicine.
Jahnabi Goswami, president of the Indian Network of People Living with HIV/
AIDS said, “The state governments of the Northeast should ensure that adequate
stocks of ART drugs are available at all times. Suppose a patient has been
taking Stavudine. When its stock gets depleted, doctors switch him over to
Nevirapine for a few months. Again he is switched back to the original drug
after its stock arrives or vice versa. This is dangerous as changing of ART
drugs frequently can make a patient develop resistance to a particular drug.
Besides, anyone who requires the second-line ART has to travel to Manipur or
Calcutta and that proves to be expensive. It is essential that such centres be
made available in every northeastern state.”
Reni Jacob, the advocacy director of World Vision, India, said in keeping
with WHO recommendations, state governments should phase out the ART drug
Stavudine (d4T) from the first-line regiment as it has long-term irreversible
side effects. Instead the National AIDS Control Organisation should substitute
it with Tenofovir (TDF).
Moreover, lack of appropriate shelters for HIV-affected children and
unavailability of trained doctors to treat such patients are major problems in
the states.
“I and my three-year-old daughter are living with HIV. Although ART treatment
is provided for free in Meghalaya, I face problems finding doctors to treat my
child when she develops some sickness. It would be nice if we have doctors who
are trained to deal with small children with HIV,” an HIV-positive mother from
Meghalaya said.
“We require specific shelter homes for HIV-positive orphans in the region, as
most shelter homes refuse to keep them citing one reason or the other. Moreover,
when we get a child admitted to school, the school authorities after knowing his
positive status refuse to keep him. They give excuses like the child’s academic
performance is not good. This discrimination affects the child very deeply,”
Goswami said.
