NACO and Global Fund Sign a 3 Year Grant Agreement

[Guest guest]

NACO and Global Fund Sign a 3 Year Grant Agreement to Scale up HIV/AIDS Related

Services in India

The Government of India and Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

(GFATM) today signed a three year grant agreement for US $ 128.4 million (Rupees

609.9 crore) to support the continuation of flagship programmes of National AIDS

Control Organisation (NACO), M/o Health & Family Welfare.

The agreement was signed during a meeting between Shri K. Chandramouli,

Secretary & Director General, NACO and Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, Executive

Director, GFATM. The programmes covered under the grant agreement include

Integrated Counseling and Testing services, Prevention of Parent to Child

Transmission (PPTCT) services aimed at preventing new born infants from

contracting HIV from their mothers and HIV-TB collaborative services.

The overall goal of the grant will be to reach and diagnose an estimated 65

percent of the HIV infected people in India and link them to care, support and

treatment services. In order to achieve this, NACO through this grant aims to

counsel and test 1.82 crore clients annually in as many as 10,700 Integrated

Counseling and Testing Centers (ICTCs) by the end of the project (2012).

Special focus will be given to antenatal women, high risk groups such as female

sex workers, men who have sex with men, intravenous drug users as well as people

with sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis.

NACO also intends to work in collaboration with the National Rural Health

Mission and increase the number of facility integrated ICTCs in Primary Health

Centers from 1000 currently to 4755. The number of facility integrated ICTCs

under the Public Private Partnership scheme in private sector will also be

increased from 266 to 1600 by the end of the three year period.

Of the estimated 65,000 HIV positive pregnant women in the country, NACO will

reach and identify 60 percent of them to administer prophylactic treatment to

prevent mother to child transmission under the PPTCT programme. In order to

achieve this target, 83 lakh pregnant women will be annually counseled and

tested in ICTCs.

In the three year period an estimated 70 percent of HIV infected TB patients

will be detected through an intensified package of HIV-TB collaboration

services.

In addition, capacity of the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare

(NIHFW) and 20 State Institutes of Health and Family Welfare and 5 National

Institutes under TB programme will also be built through the establishment of an

HIV unit, with requisite infrastructure and human resource strengthening.

Also, cold storage units will be set up in 110 warehouses across the country to

store thermolabile products like rapid HIV diagnostic kits etc. Further to

improve supply chain management, a nation wide logistics management and

information system will be installed.

NACO has recently applied for the Round 10 funding of the Global Fund. The

proposal is to reduce vulnerability among most at risk migrant population, so

that the HIV epidemic can be contained.

India's revised migrant strategy envisages identifying high out migration

locations at source and transit (besides destination), providing the migrant

population information about HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STI) and

safe migration.

Linking this population to public health services for STI, ICTCs, Anti

retroviral therapy, Rashtriya Swasthiya Bima Yojana (National Health Insurance

Scheme), Village Health Nutrition Day etc are the key areas that is expected to

be addressed by the village level workers and Volunteer Peer Leaders in the

revised migrant strategy.

Press Information Bureau, Government of India

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

08-September-2010 14:55 IST

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=65612

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

Re: /message/11944

I wonder how GFATM and NACO function. and how come so much money is given when

there is no progress or completion report or achievement or results are

available.

What is available is the grant utilisation report. Is spending money

equal to making a difference? Is that what GFATM looks at when giving more

money? May be they have enough money to waste?

I think it will be prudent that NACO and GFATM puts a result report verified by

an independent agency of what they have done with the previous grant.

Let us be accountable and trasparent. Has the report been presented to the CCM

India?

Has it been disseminated in public domian? if not, Why?

I am sure people need to know not just the spending of monies but results,

impact? Where is that?

Thanks  

Dr Sanjeev Kumar

New Delhi India

e-mail: <sanjeevbcc@...>