KARACHI, May 2: The provincial Aids control agency has decided to extend its test, treatment and counselling facilities to patients of HIV or Aids registered with private hospitals.
A source in the Sindh Aids Control Programme (SACP) said that it was sure that the number of people living with HIV in the province had been on the increase, adding that such people were not in the government network for any systematic care and attention for various reasons, making it difficult to say how many of them needed or had been receiving antiretroviral (ANT) therapy.Against estimated 35,000 HIV positive cases in Sindh, only 1,778 HIV infections, including 108 full-blown Aids cases, have been reported to the SACP till March 31, 2007. Of them, 134 are registered with the control programme for ARV treatment, CD4 test (a cell count meant to check the immune system of people living with HIV/Aids), and other purposes.
The patients were either shy of contacting doctors or did not have the courage to be tested and treated for HIV/Aids due to social taboos, he added, saying that in such a situation it was not possible to say how many of them needed or were receiving antiretroviral therapy.
According to health circles, well-off male migrants who visit sex workers abroad and had the likelihood of infection transmission within them, after returning home contact private practitioners or hospitals for relevant tests. But it is not known how many of them are found positive or provided with treatment (definitely a costlier one), added the source, saying “had the hospitals made it a practice to report the number of patients suffering from HIV/Aids or referred them to the provincial Aids control programme for a follow-up and treatment, things could have proceeded more easily and in a scientific way.”
It is said that low knowledge about HIV/Aids among the general adult population/vulnerable groups, high prevalence of risk behaviour, limited use of condoms and poverty are the main causes of the prevalence of the disease. The SACP focuses on the high risk population, advocacy, blood safety, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, care and support.
The Provincial Programme Manager on HIV/Aids control, Dr Arshad Mahmood, said that there were over 26 voluntary counselling and testing centres for confidential HIV/Aids testing with the facilities for pre- and post-test counselling, while another 46 STI clinics had been established at teaching and district headquarters hospitals for management of the infection in question.
Besides, a centre of excellence is functioning on the premises of the Services Hospital, Karachi, where patients registered with the SACP are treated and provided relevant facilities and counselling on a regular basis, he said, adding that another similar centre had been established recently at Larkana, which would be functional as soon as the relevant medical staff was trained.
He said that another centre of excellence was being set up at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, while a centre for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the virus was also being set up at the Civil Hospital, Karachi.
Dr Mahmood said that it had been decided in principle to provide medicines and CD4 cell count test facilities to patients coming from any institution, including private hospitals. The idea was not only to attend to the patients, provide them with services required for the treatment and prevention of infections and follow ups and counselling to their families, but to also ensure a scientific access to all HIV/Aids patients, he said.
He said that it was also under consideration that a network should be developed with the support of private hospitals and medical practitioners to get at least the number of HIV/Aids cases they had been handling, so that a real assessment of the situation and quantum of the infection could be , instead of planning and working on the basis of estimates only.
