By IANS
New Delhi : India, South Africa and Nigeria, home to a third of the world's AIDS patients, have the lowest scores in providing access to treatment, a report released here Monday revealed.
Only seven percent of patients in India have access to AIDS treatment while the figures are 10 percent and 18 percent in Nigeria and South Africa respectively, said the report by Action Aid International and World Health Organisation (WHO).
These figures cast a cloud over hopes to make AIDS treatment universally accessible by 2010, as promised by leading nations.
Action Aid, an international NGO, is organising a chain of events aimed at sensitising people about AIDS, its prevention and care as part of the Global AIDS Week of Action May 22-26.
The programme was kick-started Sunday with a candle light memorial in memory of all those who lost their lives to AIDS in 30 countries across the world and in 11 Indian states, including Assam, Maharashtra, Orissa, Bihar, Karnataka and Delhi.
"Two years ago the world's richest countries, G8, promised universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care by 2010. We have three more years to go and things don't look bright at all," Aditi Sharma, Action Aid's campaign coordinator, said at a press meet here Monday.
"Talking about funds, we run short of $8 billion-$10 billion every year. Governments are still not investing in training and recruiting at least four million additional health workers who are needed for implementing this task," she added.
Namita Nanda, an HIV positive person from Orissa, was present at the meet and said that her state had just one Anti-Retro Viral Therapy Centre (ART) and that too didn't have adequate facilities.
"I have been HIV positive for the past 10 years and every time I need medical assistance I have to go to West Bengal because the ART centre in my state is ill-equipped. We are demanding free second line ARV treatment, but even the first line of treatment is not available there," said 27-year-old Nanda.
On the social stigma attached to the disease, Nanda narrated how she lost both her children – one due to discrimination meted out to her by doctors and the second because she was not well informed herself.
"I didn't know that breast feeding my child could take his life. I was shattered…earlier I had lost my child because four doctors refused to attend to me when I was going through labour pain and I had to deliver at home," she said.
J.D. Seelam, a core group member of the parliamentarian forum on HIV/AIDS, also attended the meet. He said the forum had been working on sensitising MPs about AIDS.
"Once the parliamentarians are sensitised about it, it will help us take the message to the district level and then to the panchayat level so that everyone can be made aware of AIDS.
"The fact that Rs.9.7 billion for the prevention, treatment and care of AIDS is also good news," said Seelam.
According to the National AIDS Control Organisation, over 74,000 people are receiving free first line ARV treatment across the country. But second line of ARV treatment is not yet free.
There are some who have become resistant to the first line of medication. In the absence of free second line drugs, their chances of survival are limited.
The proportion of people in advanced stages of HIV who are receiving ARV drugs is below seven percent in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. But Cambodia, with its serious efforts, leads in Asia with 91 percent access.
"If Cambodia can do it, so can the rest of the world. It's all about setting your priorities," said Sharma.