Imphal, November 20: For the first time in India, the pilot project of the Clinton Foundation funded 'Pro-active identification of Child Living with HIV/AIDS (CLWHA) in community' has been launched in Manipur from today.

The main objective of the three-month long pilot project is to identify the children who have been affected with HIV/AIDS in all the districts of the State.

Deputy Director of Manipur State AIDS Control Society (MACS) Dr Premchand officially announced the launch of the project during a function held at the conference hall of Hotel Nirmala here along with a training programme for NGOs and community based organisations.

Speaking of the project, Regional Programme Manager of Clinton Foundation M Sanatomba said the main objective of the project is to identity children who are HIV positive from opportunistic infection in all the districts of Manipur so that necessary treatment can be taken up and to extend ART facilities and nutritional supports among other needs to the young patients.

Awareness programme on testing and treatment of the HIV affected children at community level, media campaign and psycho-social support to the patients and their family members through the community based organisations are other components of the project which would be implemented through November and December of this year till January next year, Sanatomba said, adding that successful implementation of the pilot projects would entail sanctioning of more projects for the welfare of the HIV affected children of the State in future.

It may be noted here that according to available report, there are in all 1400 HIV positive children enrolled in ART centres in Manipur today while 400 of them are already under ART treatment.

Speaking at the occasion of launching the project which is to be implemented along with MACS, Dr Premchand said the problem of HIV/AIDS among the children in Manipur is very alarming and CBOs and NGOs working in the field have a great role to play in fighting against this problem.

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