GUWAHATI, May 26 ? The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has sanctioned Rs 36.55 crore for the north-eastern States for the session 2003-04 to fight the onslaught of the dreaded disease. Revealing this at a workshop on AIDS today, NACO project director Meenakshi Datta Ghosh said the targeted areas for utilisation of the amount are interventions, prevention interventions, low-cost AIDS care, institutional strengthening and inter-sectoral collaboration, with an increase of 20 per cent over the previous year allocation.
NACO, which supports 94 blood banks in 76 districts, is also currently financing 58 sexually-transmitted disease (STD) clinics, and these will be increased to 76 by March 31, 2004, making one clinic for each district, Ghosh said. Besides, NACO has operatio-nalised 40 voluntary and counselling centres and aims to support one such centre per district. Since 2001, NACO in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, is striving to bring about integration and synergy between the prevention programmes for substance abuse and the programme for prevention of HIV/AIDS, she said.
Meanwhile, the first ?legislative workshop with the chief ministers and health ministers of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland on HIV/AIDS? today adopted a ?Guwahati declaration?, calling for a commitment from the policy planners to continue advocacy and awareness programmes related to HIV/AIDS prevention at the State, district and panchayati raj levels.
The meet organised by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), was participated by experts like Meenakshi Dutta Ghosh, project director of NACO, Mark Chatway from IAVI India, Dr Lalit Kant, senior deputy director general, ICMR, besides Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, Health Minister Dr Bhumidar Barman, Manipur Health Minister Dr Chalton Lien Amo and former Nagaland Chief Minister SC Jamir.
Citing the porous international borders providing easy entry to illegal drugs, presence of a large mobile population like truckers, army personnel, presence of a flourishing trafficking of girls and women, and unrest and strife in the North-east as the prime factors behind the rapid spread of HIV in the region, Meenakshi Datta Ghosh said developing region-specific strategies to implement AIDS-prevention programmes and providing sustainable high quality care to AIDS-affected people was crucial to fighting the menace. She said of the estimated 6.1 million people in South and South-East Asia living with HIV/AIDS, nearly 63 per cent live in India.
Health Minister Dr Barman said so far 171 AIDS cases have been reported in Assam and 70 per cent of the cases belong to outsiders staying in the State. Manipur Health Minister Dr Amo said in view of the high incidence of AIDS in the State, the Manipur Government was the first in the country to adopt a State AIDS policy in 1996. ?Fighting AIDS is the top priority of the Manipur Government and for this a massive sensitisation drive involving the masses have been launched,? he said.