AIDS rise may force India to spend more: World Bank

[Guest guest]

AIDS rise may force India to spend more: World Bank

By Bappa Majumdar Bappa Majumdar – Sun Mar 7, 1:10 am ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India will have to scale up prevention of HIV to avoid

having to spend an increasing share of its health budget on treatment of AIDS

patients, the World Bank and other agencies said Sunday.

New Delhi spends about 5 percent of its $5.4 billion healthcare budget on

treating AIDS patients.

India with 2.5 million patients is among the top three countries with the

highest number of HIV cases, alongside South Africa and Nigeria.

But with HIV cases showing signs of rising in the capital New Delhi, in the

financial hub of Mumbai, in the north and the northeast, the cost of treatment

in India could rise to $1.8 billion by 2020, about 7 percent of the total health

expenditure, the World Bank says.

This would pose an enormous burden on the health care services and the budget in

a country where malaria still kills hundreds of people every year and other

health-sector challenges like non-communicable diseases are as sharp as AIDS,

experts say.

More than 15 percent of the 200,000 plus injectible drug users (IDUs) are HIV

positive in the country against a global average of 10 percent, AIDS experts

say.

In some areas, HIV positive cases among IDUs have been found to be as high as 50

percent, health ministry officials quoting an ongoing survey said.

This rise could fuel the spread of AIDS unless checked, aid agencies say in

their reports.

" What we are worried about, are the concentrated epidemics in the country, among

vulnerable groups in districts, " said m Claeson, World Bank Program

Coordinator (HIV/AIDS).

" Those concentrated epidemics can act as wildfires, and therefore need to be

targeted with effective prevention efforts, " Claeson, an expert on AIDs in South

Asia, told Reuters.

Injecting drug users are infected by the virus by sharing needles with an

HIV-infected person, and passing it on by having unprotected sex.

The World Bank says the poor risk getting poorer in India as AIDS patients get

marginalized and face income loss due to their HIV status.

The World Bank quoting a recent study says in its report that about 36 percent

of people living with HIV/AIDS in India reported an income loss and increased

expenditure on treatment.

" HIV is not a major threat to the current economic growth of India, but the

welfare impact is significant and HIV disproportionately affects the poor, "

Claeson said.

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

http://news./s/nm/20100307/wl_nm/us_india_aids_1

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

Re: /message/11236

I was glad to read the contents........this is what we have been screaming

hoarse as an organisation for the past many years.

India needs to understand the cost implications of spending on treatment versus

saving on treatment costs by investing in intelligent prevention efforts on the

ground.

To take an example of the PPTCT programme alone, I am sure we all agree that

there is the much-needed focus on the positive woman/mother; however, the woman

testing negative is almost neglected or is a forgotten entity.

We are also aware that a majority of pregnant women continue to test negative in

India. In such a scenario, shouldn't we be providing equal focus to women

testing negative as well? Helping negative women stay negative is so critical to

the objective of bringing down new infections, which we wish to achieve by 2012.

How do we hope to do so when women testing negative are not in the follow-up

loop or in the absence of any other acceptable mechanism?

Local voices, in touch with field realities have been raising these critical

issues for some time now. The same is being reinforced by international voices.

Let us not waste any more time in thinking up local, intelligent,

cost-effective, and community-friendly strategies.

Await further deliberations and responses

Maya Ramachandran

Joint Director

South India AIDS Action Programme (Siaap)

e-mail: <mayu_r@...>