No scheme to help children with HIV

[Guest guest]

No scheme to help children with HIV

Ajita Singh

NEW DELHI, April 20: The government admits it has no effective

programme to address issues pertaining to HIV/AIDS affected orphans

and vulnerable children (OVC) in the country. Apart from the HIV

infected children, those who have been orphaned by AIDS need support

and treatment as well.

The Union minister of health and family welfare, Dr Anbumani

Ramadoss, apprised the Lok Sabha of this fact recently. According to

a statement laid on the table of the House, so far there is no

defined strategy to take care of AIDS affected children. While the

government is committed to provide due care to the estimated 2.5

million persons living with HIV/AIDS, neither the Central nor state

governments have been able to take any special measures to address

the constraints or problems being faced by HIV/AIDS affected

children, particularly of OVC category across the country, he

admitted.

The reason for this inaction, according to Dr Ramadoss, is the

unavailability of data on HIV affected orphans and vulnerable

children. " In the absence of data regarding the number of infected

and affected orphans and vulnerable children, no defined strategy

could be formulated to target the specific group though these

children are in as much need of government intervention as are the

HIV infected lot, " he stated.

Though the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) is carrying out

some key programmes to provide support and treatment to some 9,478

infected children of the total 32,803 HIV positive children that the

organisation has identified, it feels handicapped in identifying HIV

affected orphans.

" Actually, keeping track of all HIV affected orphans is a gigantic

task, " said Dr Damoder Bachani, joint director, care, support and

treatment division of NACO. " Once the parent/s of these HIV affected

children die or stop coming to us for treatment we lose all contact

with such children, " said Dr Bachani, adding that HIV damages a

child's life in three main ways: through its effects directly on the

child, on the child's family, and on the community that the child is

growing up in.

The Lok Sabha was informed that under the National AIDS Control Phase

III (NACP-III), 2007-2012, two initiatives have been launched:

provision of a specific pediatric fixed dose combination of anti-

retroviral drugs to infected children and access to a corpus of $14

million from the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria Round-IV in

2007-08 for providing a package of services including medical care

for opportunistic infections, psycho-social support, supplementary

nutrition, education, etc, over a period of five years.

All these interventions are also targeting infected and affected

children, including orphans, as per the government statement. The

programme aims to reach 65,000 children by 2012. Of this 5,500

children have been taken care of and NACP-III is expected to provide

assistance to 9,500 more children by this year-end, siad the report

tabled in the Lok Sabha

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