Armed Forces’ global meet on HIV in Pune

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Armed Forces' global meet on HIV today

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Armies of 14 nations to fight common enemy

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Armed Forces mull HIV screening at recruiting leve

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'Need for non-stigmatising environment to tackle AIDS'

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Armed Forces' global meet on HIV today

Express News Service

Pune, September 1: IN the first-ever exercise of its kind, the

commanders of different active formations in the country would be

interacting with Armed Forces medical officers from 14 countries on

the issue of HIV/AIDs and measures to control the rate of incidence,

at a meet which gets under way at the Armed Forces Medical College

(AFMC) here on Thursday.

National and international delegates landed here from New Delhi on

Wednesday for attending the `International Conference and Continuing

Medical Education (CME) on HIV/AIDs — the Military Face', jointly

organised by the AFMC and the Pacific Command of the United States

(US) Navy.

They included Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services

(DGAFMS) Lt Gen J R Bharadwaj, Director General of Medical Services

(Army) Lt Gen Ramji Rai and Admiral Cullison of the US Navy's Pacific

Command.

General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of the Southern Command

Lt Gen Baljit Singh Takhar will inaugurate the conference at the

AFMC's Bharadwaja auditorium at 9 am. Apart from the US, 42 delegates

from armed forces of Thailand, Malaysia, the UK, Bangladesh and other

foreign countries are attending the event, AFMC spokesman Lt Col A K

Upadhyay said.

The event will present the formation commanders a first-hand

information on the causes, prevalence and other factors concerning

HIV/AIDs and measures to deal with the same, he said. ``The idea is to

enable them to propagate the same in their units,'' he added.

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Armies of 14 nations to fight common enemy

SIDDHARTHA D KASHYAP

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 02, 2004 05:17:24 PM ]

PUNE: Military forces world-wide are increasingly undertaking joint

operations as part of their tactical strategies, but a new

co-operation of a different nature is now aimed at combating a common

enemy — HIV/AIDS.

While senior military strategies from 14 nations, including the US and

India, are meeting here in Pune over a five-day international

conference, beginning on Thursday, officials said " efforts will be

taken to learn from each other's experience to address to the global

emergency, besides frameworking certain common policies to tackle the

dreaded disease. "

The other participating countries are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji,

Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Philippines, Papua New Guinea,

Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Director-general of armed forced medical services Lt Gen JR Bharadwaj,

who pioneered the effort to bring the participating nations together

on a common platform in India, told TNN the initiative has special

significance as military personnel world-wide are part of the high

risk group.

" The risk factors, and thereby the control measures are of a common

nature, " he said, highlighting that efforts are being jointly taken to

emulate the success stories in the militaries.

While the classic example can be drawn from the Royal Thai Army, which

brought down the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS to less than one percent

last year from four in 1993, Bharadwaj said consultations are also

being held with several international as well as national

organisations like UNAIDS, USAIDS, World Bank, World Health

Organisation and National Aids Control Organisation, to name a few.

Underlining the importance of launching this joint campaign, Rear

Admiral TR Cullison representing the US Pacific Command at the

seminar, said the idea was conceived after long deliberations over the

last couple of years.

" Globally, there are over 45 million HIV positives, and the numbers

are increasing, particularly in some of the South-East Asian

countries, " he said, adding unhesitatingly, " With the kind of presence

of US troops, there was no option but to play a key role in tackling

this menace. "

Dr Randall N Hyer, the WHO representative from the civil-military

liaison activity, who earlier delivered the key-note address at the

seminar, later said militaries can act as role models, particularly in

their own operational areas, " to fight the enemy. "

" This is the prime objective of forging such an alliance between

militaries of different countries, " he said, adding soldiers are part

of a captive audience used to learning new skills, following orders

and taking initiatives. " This makes them potentially excellent agents

for change and role models for other young people, " he added.

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Armed Forces mull HIV screening at recruiting level NIPPING IT IN THE BUD:

New survey proposed to detect prevalence of dreaded virus among

personnel. Express News Service

Pune, August 30: CONCERN over prevalence of HIV infection in the Armed

Forces has made the military commanders to consider pre-employment

screening at the recruiting level as a viable option. But, it can be

implemented only if a policy decision is taken, according to Director

of Armed Forces Medical Services (Health) Group Captain Mandeep Singh.

The first case of HIV in the Armed Forces was detected in 1991 and

there has been a steady increase in the annual incidence of these

cases, but only till 1999. Since then the incidence rate has

stabilised and and it is far below the national average, according to

Group Captain Mandeep Singh.

While a random study in 1997 had stated that the incidence rate was

less than 0.5 per 1,000 personnel in Armed Forces, a new baseline

survey has been proposed to detect the prevalence of HIV infection

among the recruits, Col Zile Singh, Head, Department of Preventive and

Social Medicine at Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), said.

The Armed Forces personnel fall under a high-risk group that is prone

to the dreaded HIV virus due to separation from their families for

unnaturally long periods — at a time (20-45 years) when they are

sexually most active — and also the nature of their duties which

deploys them in impoverished and HIV endemic countries, Lt Gen Ramji

Rai, Commandant of AFMC, said.

However, the rate further dropped in 2003, Maj Gen Yogendra Singh,

Dean of AFMC, said. He said only 800 Army personnel, comprising mainly

of those people whose CD4 count was below 200, were on anti-retroviral

therapy.

Hence, for the first time-ever, senior military commanders and medical

officers of the three services and paramilitary forces from India and

abroad will meet at a five-day international conference at AFMC from

September 2 to evolve a unified strategy to combat HIV/AIDS in the

Armed Forces.

Nearly 300 delegates from 10 countries including the US, Thailand and

Malaysia along with representatives from World Bank, WHO, UNAIDS and

National AIDS Control Organisation will participate in the conference

that will be inaugurated by Lt Gen B S Takhar, General Officer

Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command. Dr Randall N Hyer of WHO will

deliver the keynote address.

The meet will also screen a film, Aakhri Dastak, based on the saga of

a soldier who in a moment of weakness is exposed to HIV infection. The

film has artists Kiran Kumar, Asif Shaikh and Raza Murad, while former

Indian skipper Kapil Dev will give a message.

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'Need for non-stigmatising environment to tackle AIDS'

SIDDHARTHA KASHYAP

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 02, 2004 05:36:35 PM ]

PUNE: General officer commanding-in-chief of Southern Command, Lt Gen BS Takhar

on Thursday underlined the need to create a non-discriminatory and

non-stigmatising environment for HIV positives, particularly in the armed

forces.

Inaugurating a five-day international conference on 'HIV/AIDS: the military

face' at the armed forces medical college here, Takhar said such an environment

is particularly necessary in view of the rising cases of infection in many

military forces.

" The armed forces can play a lead role here by introducing such an environment

for others to emulate, " he said, adding that steps should also be taken to

maintain confidentiality and treat the affected ones with compassion.

" The battle against HIV/AIDS will require long-term commitments of time, energy

and money as well as team work amongst all sections of the society, both at the

national and global level, " he said, adding that although the prevalence rate in

the Indian armed forces has reached a plateau, efforts are required to further

bring it down.

" It is not only a human crisis, but is also a threat to sustainable global,

social and economic development, " he said, pointing out armed forces' readiness

can be compromised by the virus as the skills and experience of the highly

trained soldiers are considerably lost.

He said special factors in military life, like long separation from families,

sexually active sex-group, and less regimentation in transit camps, often makes

the soldier more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.

" Considering the high-risk factors for our troops, we have undertaken certain

activities that address the underlining factors, " he said, adding that these

includes changing the posting practices and leave patterns, aimed at shortening

durations of duty away from home. " Our troops are also permitted to bring

families if long postings are unavoidable, " he added.

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