Challenges remain for India in the fight against AIDS. Here are some of them

NEW DELHI: As we approach World AIDS Day on December 1, we can give ourselves a pat on the back for continuing in earnest to fight the spread of the condition. However, it would probably be of great help to people who are HIV positive, their caregivers and activists continue to re-evaluate some of the challenges they still face in their everyday lives and in the fight against AIDS.

India has the third-highest number of people living with HIV in the world with 2.1 million Indians accounting for about four out of 10 people infected with the deadly virus in the Asia—Pacific region.

Following are some of the pertinent issues faced by the PLHIV population of the country and ways to deals with them.

Discrimination against HIV positive people and transgender community:

- PLHIVs face ignorance, discrimination and limited opportunities despite having a full-fledged law which bans each kind of discrimination against PLHIV. 

 - The transgender community does not get basic medical treatment and face complete denial, humiliation and exclusion from medical services, especially when diagnosed with HIV, as per various reports. HIV prevalence rate among trans community at 7.5%, whereas the general population has a prevalence rate of 0.26%.

HIV/TB and HIV/ HCV co-infection:

- The risk of developing active TB is estimated to be 26 and 31 times greater in people living with HIV than in those who are HIV-negative. The data garnered from studies on HIV sero-positivity among adult TB patients in tertiary health care centres provide an insight on the magnitude of the problem. To be noted is the fact that there is no official data on the magnitude of the TB/HIV co-infection in India, says AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
 
- Approximately 12 million people in India are chronically infected with Hep C and an estimated 2.3 million people living with HIV are co-infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) globally as per WHO. 

Community HIV testing:

- National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is planning a national programme on HCV on the lines of HIV/AIDS. However, data on HIV prevalence in India is yet to be collected from different parts of the country. 

- As per The Lancet, young people with HIV may now have near-normal life expectancy because of improvement in treatments.

- Timely detection of the disease is important to fight it. This can be done by reaching out to the vulnerable communities and detect the virus through testing.

- Community-based testing is a major initiative to reach out to vulnerable groups.

Shortage of condom:

-  Massive shortage of condoms is also an issue. As per NACP IV MTR report, only sixteen percent of the population have access to condoms.

- AHF India is planning to launch India’s first ‘free condom store’ where orders for condoms can be placed and it would be delivered to their doorstep for free.
 
 (Content courtesy - AIDS Healthcare Foundation)