High risk states to get free AIDS drugs

[Guest guest]

High risk states to get free AIDS drugs

Monideepa Banerjie

Thursday, January 8, 2004 (Kolkata):

On World AIDS Day, the Health Minister announced that some AIDS drugs

will be given free of cost to HIV patients in six states that are

worst hit by the disease.

From April, many HIV positive patients will get the drug free in six

states. But others will not be as fortunate. For low AIDS prevalence

states, the drugs will not be available for free.

" Just because some states have more HIV cases, they will get the drug

free and we will not. This is not logical. If we don't get the

antiretroviral free, things will go from bad to worse for HIV

patients in West Bengal, " said a HIV positive patient.

The six states worst affected by AIDS are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Nagaland and Manipur.

80 per cent India's 58,000 identified HIV patients come from these

states and they will get the life saving anti-retroviral drug free of

cost from April.

The rest - some 11,000 patients from other states - have to fend for

themselves, at least for now.

" Positive guys are very unhappy. They feel slightly cheated. They had

lot of expectations that the minister would make a positive policy

statement uniformly for the entire country. But even then, I feel it

is a big success and India has made a big start, " said S Suresh

Kumar, Project Director for West Bengal AIDS Prevention and Control

Society.

The free supply of antiretroviral may trickle down to West Bengal and

other low-prevalance states in a couple of years. For many, it will

have come too late.

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