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The National AIDS Control Organisation

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The Government of India launched a comprehensive national AIDS control program from April 1992. First phase of the programme, that is national AIDS control programme I, was initially from 1992-97 and was later extended to 1999.

National AIDS control programme II, commenced with effect from April 1999 and is currently operative. This phase of the programme was launched to achieve two objectives:

1 To reduce the spread of HIV infections
2 To strengthen the capacity of central and state government to responds to HIV/AIDS on a long-term basis.

These objectives are to be achieved through the following key components:

• Targeted interventions for communities at higher risk
• Prevention of HIV transmission among the general population
• Provision of low cost care
• Strengthening institutional capacities
• Intersectoral collaboration

The programme implementation has been completely decentralized to states and union territories . Each state and union territory has registered a state AIDS control society (SACS) responsible for implementing the programme at the state/UT level. The cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad have formed the Municipal AIDS control society to effectively implement the AIDS control programme in these large cities. Each state AIDS control society developed a project implementation plan for addressing the state specific needs.

For monitoring the trends and pattern of HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country, the national AIDS control organization updates the HIV estimates, based on the sentinel surveillance conducted every year.

The trends across the country show that there is galloping HIV epidemic in the country.

India presently ranks as the second country in the world, next only to South Africa with large number of persons having HIV infections. However in terms of prevalence rates, HIV prevalence rate is 0.91 percent among adult population in the country of the world because of the overall HIV prevalence being less than 1 percent among the adult population of the country. Prevalence rate of HIV infections in South Africa at present is 21.5 percent.

The distribution of HIV infections is not uniform across various states of the country. Six of our states are categorized as high prevalence states

• Tamil Nadu
• Maharastra
• Karnataka
• Andhra Pradesh
• Manipur
• Nagaland

Rest of the country is divided into vulnerable and highly vulnerable areas.

IEC

Information, education and communication (IEC) is one of the most important strategies in the fight against HIV/AIDS, in the absence of a vaccine or a cure. The majority of the population is still uninfected. Therefore, it becomes imperative to continue intensive information education and communication efforts that will not only raise awareness levels in the general population on prevention of the infection but also bring about behaviour change to adopt and maintain healthy life style.

The information education and communication strategy efforts at national AIDS control organization are operationalised at two levels.

National Level

At the national level, national AIDS control organization is responsible for policy planning and the framing of guidelines for information, education and communication activities countrywide besides implementing some campaigns at the national level. Political and medial advocacy receive special focus at the national level. National AIDS control organization formulates information, education and communication guidelines to provide a framework for focused and cost-effective information, education, and communication activities from time to time.

State Level

At the state level, the information, education and communication activities are undertaken keeping in mind the need to respond to local priorities and communication in the local language. In order to create baseline data, the state AIDS control societies conduct communication needs assessment on the basis of which state level information, education and communication strategy and action plans are developed.

For people living with HIV/AIDS, treatment for opportunistic infections is being made available right from the beginning of the national AIDS control programme. Now, provision has been made for free antiretroviral therapy (ART) to those who are HIV positive and eligible to receive this therapy based on the clinical and biomedical criteria. Provision of free antiretroviral therapy services was launched from 1 April 2004 and till 30 June 2005, a total of 10250 patients have been placed on antiretroviral therapy in 25 antiretroviral therapy centres established so far in selected medical institutions across the country.

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Tags: AIDS, antiretroviral therapy, HIV, Information education and communication, National AIDS Control Organisation, state AIDS control society