Imphal, May 15: Having forged an innovative partnership to improve the quality of treatment, care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS, Po-pulation Foundation of India (PFI) and Manipur State AIDS Control Society (MACS) facilitated a day-long dialogues and interac- tion between the service providers and HIV positive people.

Supporting the effort, Deputy Director, ART unit, MACS Dr A Gojendra Meetei stated the major focus of MACS has been to provide medicines for opportunistic infections, dis- tribute clean needles and syringes as part of the Needle-Syringe Exchange programme for injecting drug users and reach out to people with HIV prevention education.

�But today since our concern is not only about strengthening HIV prevention, but also about providing ART drugs to the affected community, we have to ensure proper drug adherence to and compliance by the people living with HIV and in this context, we think the present collaboration with PFI is important�, he said.

Programme Manager of PFI, New Delhi Subrat Mohanty said in various health care settings there is always a gap between service seekers and the care providers.

When it comes to HIV/AIDS, it becomes all the more important to bridge this gap.

With PFI having setting up Treatment Counselling Centres (TCC) in JN Hospital and RIMS, we are interested in bringing together all the stockholders so that we can address all the challenges related to Anti-Retroviral Treatment, he added.

Explaining the role of PFI, State Programme Co-ordinator M Abhiram said �since 2004, with MACS providing free Anti Retro-viral treatment, we facilitate training of ARV users on drug adherence, treatment preparedness, food and nutrition and have opened two treatment counselling centres (TCC) at JN Hospital and RIMS hospital�.

�We have also strengthened the existing districts level networks of MNP+ to follow up on people who are receiving this treatment�, he added.

Speaking on behalf of HIV positive people, Kimi narrated that when she first started undergoing ART treatment she did not really pay much heed to the need of taking the drugs regularly.

�On top of that, I was an alcoholic at that time, but latter through the TCC counsellors, I realised that being on ART was not going to be of much use if I continued with my drinking habit�.

Sharing his experience, Rocket said that he was an injecting drug user.

After he came to know about his HIV + status, he was unsure of where to go for treatment , which doctors to be consulted and how to get on with life.

But through the efforts of MNP+ and the TCC, he is now much more confident and able to get the services that he needed including medication, counselling and emotional support.

�Now, I am no longer on drugs since I have realised that it could be harmful to combined this with the ART�, he said.

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