Imphal, December 07: Decrying alleged indifferent attitude of the Government of India towards HIV infected/affected people in connection with introduction of Second Line ART (AntiRetroviral Therapy) Treatment, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in the State in the field of HIV/AIDS have categorically demanded that the introduction of the second line ART treatment should be done simultaneously in the six Indian States with high HIV prevalent rate.

Participating in a discussion session on the issue at the office of Lifeline Foundation, representatives of nine constituent NGOs of the Task Force to Empower Addressing Medical Issue (TEAM) came out strongly against the announcement made by Union Health Minister on the occasion of World AIDS Day that the second line ART treatment would be extended to HIV patients of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu with effect from January 2008 and to the HIV patients of other some States including Manipur with effect from April 2008.The representatives of the NGOs who spoke at the occasion pointed out that Manipur is among the six Indian States with high HIV prevalence rate.

So the second line ART treatment ought to be introduced in Manipur along with Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

At present, there are around 30 patients in Manipur who are undergoing the second line ART treatment at their own cost.

Moreover, there has been high rate of drug resistance among the patients of first line ART treatment due to non-availability of drugs and non-adherence to the drugs.

So special attention should be given to Manipur at the time of introduction of second line of ART treatment, they observed.

The representatives of the NGOs further observed that patients of second line ART treatment have to spend around Rs 8000 to Rs 10,000 every month in purchasing the drug.

Due to high cost of the drug, there are many patients who could not continue the treatment.

There is nothing wrong in providing facilities of the second line ART treatment to more number of patients in other big States.

But the facilities should be extended simultaneously to all the HIV high prevalent States, they argued.

On another agenda taken up for the discussion, the representatives observed that the facilities for Post-Exposure Prophylasis (PEP) should also be extended to all high behavioural risk groups of HIV infection.

According to the guidelines of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), it is said that the facility for PEP is to be used by the doctors and nurses working in the hospitals in case they suspected themselves to have been exposed to HIV/AIDS during the course of their work and not for any other purposes.

The representatives of the NGOs also expressed reservation against the decision of Manipur State AIDS Control Society (MACS) for providing the drugs for Opportunistic Infections (OIs) to the health institutions instead of providing the same through the NGOs working directly with the patients.

It is said that the MACS has taken the decision of providing OI drugs only through the ART centres, Primary Health Centres and Community Health Centres after instances of misuse of the drugs by the NGOs.

However, the participants of the discussion session asserted that providing drugs through the health institutions which do not have doctors, nurses and buildings would not serve the purpose.

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