India to get Rs 609.9 crore from Global Fund to fight AIDS

The three-year grant agreement was signed during a meeting between K Chandramouli, Secretary and Director General, National Aids Control Organisation and Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director, GFATM.

The programmes covered under the grant agreement include integrated counselling 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 per cent of the HIV infected people in India and link them to care, support and treatment network.
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 counselling and testing centres (ICTCs) by the end of the project (2012), senior officials said.

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 centres from the current 1000 to 4755.

Of the estimated 65,000 HIV-positive pregnant women in the country, NACO will reach and identify 60 per cent 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 counselled and tested in ICTCs.

In the three-year period, an estimated 70 per cent 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), 20 State Institutes of Health and Family Welfare and five National Institutes under TB programme will also be built through the establishment of an HIV unit, with requisite infrastructure and human resource strengthening.

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