Editorial: A pioneering effort on HIV
Published in The Hindu on November 20, 2007
In another pioneering effort to battle the HIV epidemic in the State, the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TNSACS) will soon flag off ten mobile vans that will take HIV counselling and testing to the doorsteps of the vulnerable people. With the infection no longer confined to the high-risk groups, efforts are being made to motivate the general population apart from those belonging to the bridge population, such as the clients of sex workers, and the high-risk category, to get tested. The accent in recent years has therefore been on increasing the number of testing centres. With free availability of medicines changing people’s perception of the infection, there is now an even greater compulsion to enlarge the coverage. After all, Brazil had shown the world years ago that access to free medicines was an attraction for people to willingly get tested, which in turn helped bring down new infections. With the number of people getting tested rising steadily over the last few years in Tamil Nadu — 15 lakhs this year as compared to 10.4 lakhs last year and 7.1 lakhs in 2005 at the 760 integrated counselling and testing centres spread across the State — the latest initiative will cater to some sections of the society that were not covered so far.
The client load — the number of people getting tested at a centre in a day — has gone up from 6-7 last year to 12 this year, making Tamil Nadu the number one State in the country. Despite this encouraging trend, the need to educate and create a greater awareness of this critical issue cannot be overemphasized as there are still numerous people who are ignorant of their infection. If fear and denial hold back people from knowing their status at an early stage of infection, these should be overcome by effectively communicating the advantages that include delayed onset of AIDS through changed lifestyles and fewer chances of infecting others. In line with the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) Phase III, the mobile HIV testing vans will be integrating HIV testing with other tests such as for diabetes and anemia. The focus is on making HIV testing a mainstream activity and not a stand alone exercise so that more people can get tested. With its efforts to increase the number of public health centres working round the clock from 780 to nearly 1,000, and providing counselling and testing facilities in all these centres, the State is leaving no stone unturned to make testing facilities widely available. Such proactive measures have gone far to reduce the prevalence from 1.13 per cent of the State’s population in 2000 to 0.38 per cent last year, which is the lowest among the four high-prevalence States.
