Consultation workshop on Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) held at Imphal

[Guest guest]

Dear Moderator,

A state level consultation meeting on Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) was held on

29th May at Imphal to make available of the facilities under the National

Essential Package of Care for the HIV-exposed infants and children less than 18

months to the children of Manipur as per the NACO guidelines and also to create

public awareness on the facility and benefits of EID.

The meeting was organized jointly by Social Awareness Service Organisation

(SASO) and its CHAHA partners in Manipur. About 50 representatives from State

AIDS Control Society, UNICEF, bilateral agencies, NGOs participated the meeting.

Giving the key note address of the workshop, Mr. Y Shasikumar, General

Secretary, SASO expressed that death rate of among the children infected and

affected by HIV has increased day by day.

Out of 3241 children registered in the state by the end of March 2010, 30

children are found death and 73% of them are below the age of 2 years. He

further expressed that, if the facilities of the Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) is

made available, the death rate of the children could be decreased to some

extent.

The prevailing stigma and discrimination in the state also may make more

complicated to come out for testing of HIV status. He further requested all the

invitees to cooperate and join hands in order to make the facilities of EID to

make available in the state.

In his presentation, the CHAHA Coordinator, Mr. M Basanta stated that out of 630

children registered in Imphal West District, mothers of more than 82% children

are HIV positive.

Thus, the number of HIV exposed children may increase in the state. The state

needs to have an essential package to prevent children dying at early ages,

create awareness of DNA-PCR testing to generate informed demand from communities

and healthcare providers, lternative means for those who do not want their

children below 18 months to get tested, skilled and specialized counselor and

Pediatrician at all ART

centres, nutritional counselling and education and moreover full protection of

children’s right to live.

Dr. Kh Pramodkumar Singh, Project Director (Technical), Manipur State AIDS

Control Society, in his speech stated that death of one-third of HIV exposed

infants within one year of birth and 50 percent of them within two years of

birth is mainly due to difficulty in prior detection of HIV infection among

these infants and lack of awareness of the medical needs of HIV exposed infants.

In order to fully initiate the National Essential Package including

testing of infants after 6 weeks in the state may take few months.

However, the package will be more successful when the parents and care givers

fully aware of cotrimoxazole prophylaxis, immunization, nutrition, and breast

feeding, regular health check up etc.

At the end of the workshop various recommendations have also been adopted after

a detail discussion moderated by Mr. N Ibungochoubi Singh, Executive Editor,

Manipur mail.

The recommendations include introducing the facility for Early Infant Diagnosis

(EID) at the earliest possible, installation of necessary infrastructure of EID

like DNA PCR Machine, improvement of necessary paraphernalia for EID with

trained and specialized manpower, revisiting the state AIDS policy to

incorporate the issues of children, meeting the expenditure on DNA-PCR test by

NACO until installation of the DNA-PCR machine in Manipur, etc.

All the recommendation will be forwarded to NACO, MACS, Media and NGOS working

in the field of HIV-AIDS in Manipur.

General Secretary

SASO - Social Awareness Service Organisation

Uripok Sinam Leikai

Opposite Common School

Imphal - 795001 MANIPUR

Ph.no. +91 385 2414011/2411408 Fax.no.+91 385 2411409.

e-mail : contact@... &

saso.imp@...

www.sasoimphal.org