432 AIDS patients in district

Number of HIV infected people steadily rising over the past two years

 Counselling for for HIV and AIDS was conducted to as many as10,087 people . At least 432 people out of the 9,984 persons tested were HIV positive.

Out of the 2,561 patients registered for treatment at the SNR hospital in Kolar, 223 of them have died and 743 are on treatment.

Nearly 35 expectant mothers have tested positive for HIV during January to June. Counselling was conducted for 11,369 expectant mothers and 35 out of the 11,163 pregnants who underwent test were confirmed to be infected HIV positive .

District Aids Control Officer Dr Jagadeesh talking to Deccan Herald said, there is a steep increase in HIV- AIDS patients. The district had not witnessed such increase till 2007. This rise is being noticed only after the test being carried out by the department, on the regular basis. All those who attend counselling do not under go test. Test is conducted only on those who are interested.

Districts are categorised as ‘A’ ‘B’ and ‘C’ according to the number of infected people. Kolar comes under ‘A’ category as it has highest number of AIDS infected patients, he said.

District Aids Prevention and Control units are set up at the district level to create awareness on HIV and Aids. These units work under the guidance of State Aids Control Board.

Chitradurga does not have this unit as it has the lowest number of AIDS affected people and has been listed in ‘C’ category, he said.

Pointing out lack of awareness on safe sex as the cause for such steady rise in AIDS affected persons he said training will be imparted to people’s representatives and officers at taluk and district level, to create awareness and seek co-operation on this matter. In the later stage training will also be conducted at the village level, he said.
Training is being imparted jointly by State Aids Control Board, Karnataka Health Promotion Trust, District AIDS  Prevention and Control units.

A workshop has already been conducted officials and police and 10 workshops has been held for the ZP members, NGOs. MYRADA is acting as a nodal agency for imparting training, he said.

Training postponed

The training programme for the president and members of ZP on AIDS Prevention and Control was postponed as the members failed to turn up, in Kolar.

A training to create awareness on HIV and Aids,  was organised under District Aids Prevention and Control Unit, in Kolar on Friday. Zilla Panchayat President Srinivasan was to inaugurate the programme. District Health Officer Dr Ramesh Babu, District Aids Control Officer Dr Jagadeesh, trainers from the MYRADA organisation were present.
But the president and the members failed to turnout on time. President arrived after a long wait,  but the programme was postponed to July 18, as members failed to turn out, in large number, Venkatesh of MYRADA organisation informed.

Dr Ramesh Babu lamented that lukewarm response for publicity programmes organised by Health Department had become a norm. Public representatives themselves are not evincing interest in such programmes, he pointed out.