********************************************************** SAATHII Electronic Newsletter HIV NEWS FROM INDIA Source: Hindustan Times, Express India, DNA India and the Hindu Posted on: 22/01/2008 COMPILED BY: Jacob Boopalan, and L. Ramakrishnan SAATHII Chennai Office. Note: this compilation contains news items about HIV/AIDS published in the Indian media, as well as articles relevant to HIV/AIDS in India published internationally. Articles in this and previous newsletters may also be accessed at http://www.saathii.org/orc/elibrary =============================================================== 1. Funded by Bill Gates, top writers on India’s AIDS trail Hindustan Times, January 19, 2008. http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=687d3e26-5bb1-46d2-87f1-7b1dc33d4ecc&&Headline=Top+writers+on+India%e2%80%99s+AIDS+trail During his recent stay in Mumbai, Salman Rushdie discovered the un-magical realism of the lives of the city’s eunuchs. This, while William Dalrymple shifted his gaze from the Mughals to the plight of Devadasis in northern Karnataka and Nalini Jones met a newly-wed couple in Bangalore who discovered they were both HIV-positive. It’s not a reality-inspired fiction that’s on the writers’ minds. It’s AIDS. Along with 12 other celebrated authors, they are participating in a unique initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that aims to promote public dialogue about the disease in India and abroad. Rushdie, however, left Mumbai ahead of schedule due to threats from fundamentalist forces, the police said. The authors will visit communities or families affected by HIV/AIDS in the country to explore different aspects of the epidemic. Their writings will be like news magazine reports compiled together, said Parmeshwar Godrej, who has been closely involved with the project. “I met widows and orphans and will write about how life goes on despite HIV,” said Jones, from Bangalore. Vikram Seth, Kiran Desai, Amit Chaudhuri, Siddhartha Deb, Nikita Lalwani, Sonia Faleiro, Shobhaa De, Jaspreet Singh, Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi, CS Lakshmi, Sunil Ganguly and Mukul Kesavan are the other contributors to the cause. The anthology, with a foreword by Amartya Sen, will be published in August. The Gates Foundation hopes it will humanise the epidemic. Around 2.5 million Indians are living with HIV, with some of India’s most marginalised communities hardest hit by it. =============================================================== 2. Here’s help for the HIV-hit kids Express India, January 19, 2008. http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Heres-help-for-the-HIVhit-kids/262999/ Pune: Alfa Laval India, a multi-national company, has a sister company in Denmark at Kolding, 300 kms from Copenhagen. Jorn Krogager, who is now chief of Alfa Laval Denmark , was working with Alfa Laval here from 2002 to 2005. On his return to Denmark, he had made an appeal to all employees of Alfa Laval Denmark to come forward and help HIV/AIDS afflicted children in India. As a response for his appeal, many employees came forward and contributed 2.5 lakh (about 31,250 Danish Kroners) from their Christmas gift, which is given to them by Alfa Laval as an employer, at the time of Christmas 2007. A function was held at Manavya's facility at Bhugaon on January 17 when Jorn Krogager handed over the donation to Shireesh Lawate, social worker at Manavya. K S Swaminathan, general manger, HR and Rajendra Argade, senior general Manager of Alfa Laval India were also present, stated a press note. On the occasion, Ujwala Lawate, head, Manavya, said, "With such a donations coming from abroad, and well wishers of Manavya spreading across the globe, will help Manavya's to achieve their endeavour of rehabilitating HIV/AIDS afflicted women and their innocent children." Krogager said he had been in India from 2002 to 2005. During his stay he has seen problems of poor HIV affected children and since then he has decided to donate some thing. He has convinced the employees of his company in Denmark and collected the amount as a Christmas gift for the children of Manavya. Manavya, an NGO at Bhugaon near Pune, has been involved in rehabilitating children borns with HIV/AIDS. At present there are 53 children. Manavya takes care of their food, shelter, clothing and medical care since 1997. =============================================================== 3. Identity card must for AIDS patients: NACO Hindustan Times, January 21, 2008. http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=c7276e63-48be-4dc0-8770-d702021ea99a&&Headline=Identity+card+must+for+AIDS+patients%3a+NACO If you thought photo identity cards were required only to cast votes during elections, think again. The National AIDS Control Organisation, in short NACO, has said AIDS patients seeking treatment free of cost at any of its anti-retro viral therapy centres across the country must from now on carry photo identity cards. The move is sure to face opposition from AIDS patients who prefer to hide the disease from family members and society in a country where such people are treated as outcasts. NACO, issuing the guideline, said this was being done to check the growing number of patients it was losing track of, which it said was defeating its goal to “ensure continuity in treatment of HIV patients”. In a concession, however, it said those with no photo identity cards can produce residential proof attested by the area's elected public representative. “Photo identity cards are turning out to be a real help for both patients, doctors and other staff at ART centres,” said Dr Vishwajeet Bembi, senior medical officer at the ART, or anti-retro viral therapy centre, here. He elaborated that accurate address and identity help to keep track of patients who come from far-flung places of western Uttar Pradesh. Treatment at ART centres helps patients to not only fight the deadly virus but also enhance life expectancy. 'Lost to follow-up' cases But in many cases patients do not turn up regularly for treatment, forcing doctors and medical workers to make efforts to locate these “lost patients” - which they call “lost to follow-up” cases. And to trace these cases, an ART centre requires the accurate address and, to make their task easier, the photograph of the patient that many do not provide because they fear by doing so they can no longer hide the fact they are HIV-positive in a country where the disease is still seen as a stigma. Usually, educated patients or those from urban areas provide fake identities, said Dr Bembi. “Such negligence by patients ultimately defeats our goal to keep the spread of the deadly virus under control,” said Dr Bembi, explaining why a close monitoring of each patient was significant. “Even the efforts of other patients who live in the vicinity of a given address yield no result,” explained another worker at the centre, adding that in few cases lost patients were found dead and others were misguided by people that their visits to ART centres might “expose” them in society. Since it started functioning on December 8, 2005, the ART centre here has received 1,023 patients from various districts of western Uttar Pradesh. Majority are from lower strata of the society and include children and women. =============================================================== 4. Maharashtra AIDS project indicted for fraud DNA India, January 21, 2008. http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1146495 World Bank review shows that a big chunk of the NACP-2 funds went for bribes, faulty kits led to wrong diagnosis NEW DELHI: The World Bank has sharply criticised the implementation of India’s Second National AIDS Control Project (NACP-2) for high levels of corruption, misappropriation and financial irregularities. Mumbai and Maharashtra share the lion’s share of the blame for the fraud and mismanagement in NACP-2, which ran from September 1999 to March 2006. The bank’s detailed implementation review (DIR) suggests that bribes of 10-40% had to be paid by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for the release of funds, NGOs were poorly monitored and some were non-existent, and, worse, the poor quality of testing kits supplied may have exaggerated the number of people testing HIV-positive. Faulty kits showed people as HIV-positive when they were not, ruining people’s lives and forcing them to live with stigma and psychological stress when they had no need to. The bank’s review found that a large number of false HIV/AIDS- positive cases were detected due to faulty diagnostic kits supplied by Monozyme India Ltd, Span Diagnostics Ltd and Zhongshan Biotech Company Ltd of China. Interestingly, despite having problems in their contracts, the Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS) and the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society (MDACS) continued to award contracts to these companies even when there were 21 other companies who could have supplied the same kits. These contracts were awarded without checking the authenticity, credentials and credibility of the suppliers. In one case, the review team found Chinese restaurant Golden Dragon at the address given by Zhongshan’s local distributor in Mumbai, Spectra Pharma and Health Products. While the review has raised questions about the legitimacy of the supplier, the report also hints at the connivance of MDACS officials who did not even bother to verify the credentials of the supplier before awarding such an important contract. The World Bank noted several indicators of fraud and corruption in procurement procedures for testing kits, including long delays in opening bids and awarding contracts, apparent avoidance of the World Bank’s prior review threshold and unusual pricing patterns. What followed was a disaster for many patients. Summarising the results of cross-checking HIV test results at Mumbai’s KEM Hospital VCTC, the World Bank found that more than half the number of people declared HIV positive using Monozyme kits (2,640 out of 4,620) actually tested negative when rescreened. In fact, only 1,980 finally tested positive after two supplementary screenings. In other words, from the original list of 19,331 people tested, the faulty tests showed 23.9% as HIV-positive when the real figure should have been 10.49%. A huge 13.66% of people were wrongly declared as HIV-positive when they were in sound health. At GT Hospital, 28 out of the 4,920 people tested with Monozyme kits showed a false positive. At JJ Hospital, 17 out of 873 results were discordant. The overall discordance rate at JJ Hospital was 12.23%. These and several other hospitals in Maharashtra had complained about the faulty testing kits, indicating the extent of the problem. The substandard quality of test kits used yielded invalid and unusually high false positive results, or discordant results. Some test kits were distributed near their expiry dates. At blood banks, false negative results carry the risk of infected blood being given through transfusions; a false positive test means blood that can be used for those who need it is actually wasted. All this continued despite regular complaints from blood banks like Indian Red Cross Society and Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, and Rajawadi Hospital. MDACS actually reported the matter to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in 2006 only after the latter’s pressure for a feedback. =============================================================== 5. NACO plans smart cards for AIDS patients The Hindu, January 21, 2008. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200801211661.htm New Delhi: In an effort to ensure continuity in treatment of AIDS patients, the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) would be issuing computerised smart cards to patients, who are being treated at any of the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres across the country. "This was being done to keep track of the growing number of AIDS patients in the country and ensure continuity in their treatment," NACO Director General, Sujatha Rao, told PTI. The smart cards which will store the entire case history of the patient will also help them in seeking treatment anywhere in the country. "Sometimes patients move from one city to another and it affects their treatment. But with the smart card they can approach any ART centre and get their medicines," Rao said. "We are in the process of computerisation of all records, and would make smart cards compulsory soon," she said. Treatment is provided free to AIDS patients at the ART centres across the country. Doctors say in many cases patients do not turn up regularly for treatment, forcing doctors and medical workers to make efforts to locate them. In order to trace these cases, the ART centres require the accurate addresses and the smart cards would make their task easier. =============================================================== Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in the above articles are those of the respective newspapers, not those of SAATHII.