Aizawl: A few weeks after his meeting with Mizoram Government Doctors’ Association, state health and family welfare minister Dr R Lalthangliana on Monday invited the Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitu Committee (church leaders’ committee) along with medical experts from the Mizoram State Aids Control Society (MSACS) to discuss the prevalence of HIV/AIDS cases in the state.

At the meeting, the minister stated that though Mizoram has a good health record, the spread of HIV/AIDS in the last few years has accelerated — particularly between 2013 and 2014 — at an alarming rate.

He stressed that a new prevention and awareness campaign on HIV/AIDS needs to be taken up and called on church leaders to ramp up the awareness campaigns among the youths.

Reports from MSACS director Dr Lalthlengliani indicated that in 2018 alone, 2,557 cases of HIV/AIDS were detected, of which 843 were from Aizawl district alone. She stated that nine positive cases of HIV/AIDS are reported in Mizoram every day, with the most vulnerable people aged between 25 and 34 years.

Dr Lalthlengliani also stated that the elimination of ‘infected mother to child transmission’ shall be started from 2020.

According to the Mizoram State AIDS Control Society (MSACS), 67.21% of HIV-positive cases from 2006 to March 2019 were transmitted sexually, while 28.12% cases were through infected needles shared by intravenous drug users.

Data compiled by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) in 2017 showed that 2.04% of Mizoram’s population is found to be HIV-positive against the national average of 0.2%. This puts the state with the highest record of HIV prevalence followed by Manipur (1.43%) and Nagaland (1.15%).

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Dementia poses a threat to global health on the same scale as HIV and Aids, the Dutch government has said, warning that the number of people with the condition will not be far off the population of Germany by 2030.

In a speech to the World Dementia Council summit in Japan on Friday, Hugo de Jonge, the Dutch health minister, said dementia was underfunded, misunderstood and overlooked, as HIV and Aids were in their early days.

“Only when it became clear how quickly the epidemic of HIV/Aids was taking hold … taking millions of lives around the globe, did a global awareness emerge,” De Jonge said. “A huge sense of urgency arose … and around 15 years after the epidemic first took hold, an effective treatment had been found.

“Today, we are on the verge of another epidemic; not a disease that attacks our immune systems, but our brain, our memory, our personality, ourselves. Like HIV/Aids in its early days, dementia is a globally underfunded area of medicine.”

He pointed out that if all people believed to have dementia lived in one country, it would be roughly the size of Spain, and cited predictions that by 2030, this hypothetical nation would contain nearly 75 million people. “By then, it should become a member of the G7,” De Jonge said.

“The costs of dementia care by that time are estimated at a staggering $2tn (£1.6tn). No one should be in any doubt: dementia is one of the biggest medical and social challenges we’ll face in the years ahead. In some countries, it already is the main cause of death.”

Prof Philip Scheltens, the director of the Alzheimer Centre at UMC teaching hospital in Amsterdam, has lobbied the Dutch government for serious investment in research.

“The comparison with Aids is often made,” he said. “The urgency is unbelievably huge, as it was at the time, although it might be better to compare it with cancer. There is still no medicine and we need to go back to the drawing board to understand dementia. The worldwide budget must go up.”

The Netherlands will also call for other countries at the G20 health ministers’ meeting this weekend in Okayama, Japan, to participate in a joint research programme. In July next year, Amsterdam will host a strategy summit for 6,000 researchers.

Lenny Shallcross, the executive director of the World Dementia Council, who was at the Japan summit, said: “Dementia is the biggest health challenge of the 21st century.”

Hilary Evans, the chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the Aids comparison was appropriate.

“One in three people born today will develop this devastating condition in their lifetime, unless we find new ways to prevent and treat the diseases,” she said.

“We’ve seen what can successfully be achieved in other areas of health by a movement of people coming together to call for change, tackle stigma and drive radical and sustained increases in research funding.

“Thanks to this research investment, today HIV is no longer a terminal condition in many countries, and research has changed so many lives. We want to see the same for dementia and the 50 million people worldwide affected by the condition.”

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With the growing number of HIV patients in Odisha raising a big concern, Health Minister Naba Kishore Das said public awareness is a must for control and eradication of AIDS.

Speaking at the State Level Sensitization and Preparatory Meeting for Intensive Health Camp-2019-20 organised by the Odisha State AIDS Control Society (OSACS) here on Wednesday, Minister Das said that AIDS has emerged as a dreaded disease since last few decadesand its lengthy and expensive treatment adversely impacts the socio-economic condition of the patient.

Urging for change in mindset for HIV-affected people, Das said that AIDS could be controlled with regular medical treatment and nutritious food.

As on July 2019, as many as 48,894 AIDS patients have been identified in Odisha and 86 percent of them have been treated through antiretroviral therapy free of cost. 96 percent pregnant women in the State have been tested for AIDS and of them 226 have been identified with the virus. Of the 99 percent common people, 3,273 have been diagnosed with the deadly virus. However, the spread of the disease has been checked to a great extent through the sincere effort by the State Government and massive awareness campaign ‘Know Your HIV Status’ by OSACS.

During the programme, OSACS Project Director Guha Poonam Tapas Kumar spoke about the various measures and awareness programmes initiated by the OSACS to check spread of AIDS in Odisha.

Speaking on the occasion, State Labour Commissioner Niranjan Sahoo said that awareness about AIDS among migrant labourers is essential to arrest the spread of the disease in Odisha. According to private sources, every year 2 to 6 lakh people of Odisha migrate to other States in search of work. Especially, people from Balangir and Nuapada districts move to neighbouring States and work in brick kilns for over six months in a year in very unhygienic conditions and get infected by HIV due to lack of awareness. These people should be included in various welfare schemes launched by the Odisha Government so as to check migration and spread of AIDS in the State, opined Sahoo.

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haramshala: Health and Family Welfare Minister Vipin Singh Parmar today launched the state-level International Youth Day Campaign at the Government Senior Secondary School Bhavarna in Sulah assembly constituency. This campaign is going to be organized till August 31, 2019, by the Health and Family Welfare Department, Himachal Pradesh in collaboration with Himachal Pradesh State AIDS Control Committee.

The Health Minister said that HIV / AIDS has emerged not only as a worldwide health problem but also as a social problem. He said that a target has been set to eliminate AIDS from all over India by 2030. Under which the state government is striving to achieve the goal of identifying 90 percent of HIV affected people by 2020 and connecting them to the treatment facility.

The Health Minister said that the Health Department and the Himachal Pradesh State AIDS Control Committee are implementing various facilities and activities for HIV prevention in the state. He said that 45 integrated counselling and investigation centres are working to make HIV / AIDS screening facility accessible to the general public in the state.Apart from this, 10 new integrated counselling and investigation centers are proposed to be set up in the current financial year.

The Health Minister flagged off the AIDS awareness rally and inaugurated the Super Specialty Health Camp, HIV screening, disability certificate camp. HIV awareness exhibition was organized in the camp. In addition to this cardiovascular diseases, gynaecology, eye-nose and throat, orthopaedics, dermatitis, paediatrics, medicine, psychiatry and surgical diseases were investigated by physicians.

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Expanding access to treatment and targeting vulnerable populations will be a core part of a strategy to bring down the number of HIV cases in India, according to recent reports. 

The Union Health Ministry intends to reduce the number of HIV cases in the country by 20,000 on a yearly basis in 2019 and 2020, according to an anonymous official. This will involve ensuring that antiretroviral therapy (ART) centres are made available for the treatment of individuals with HIV. Claiming that 540 such centres are operational nationwide at present, the official stated that the Ministry has directed an expansion of the same, so that “all government and private medical colleges will have ART centres only for the treatment of HIV patients.

As part of its strategy to reduce HIV infections, the Ministry will be conducting outreach to populations with a higher-than-average prevalence of the condition – including marginalised and often ignored persons such as those in prisons and women’s remand homes where the official claims that HIV cases are “five to six times more than that among [the] general population.” According to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), the rate of HIV infection in India’s prisons stands at around 2.5 percent compared to a prevalence of 0.28 percent amongst the general population. Unsafe sex and intravenous drug use are identified as the drivers behind the comparatively high prevalence of HIV among India’s inmates. 

A HIV prevalence of 0.28 percent may seem relatively small but in a country as populous as India, this translates to a significant number of cases. India is home to 2.1 million HIV-positive individuals – the third-largest epidemic of HIV in the world. Fortunately, India is making progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of new HIV infections fell from 120,000 to 88,000 whilst AIDS-related deaths fell from 160,000 to 90,000.However, there are gaps in this progress. 

The proportion of individuals living with HIV aware of their status stands at 79 percent, of whom a mere 56 percent receive ART medicines to improve their quality of life, life expectancy, and reduce the risk of transmission. AVERT, an international HIV/AIDS charity, notes that “despite free antiretroviral treatment being available, uptake remains low as many people face difficulty in accessing clinics.” In addition, it states that “there have been shortfalls in the procurement, management and distribution of ARVs, HIV testing kits and other HIV commodities, mainly due to supply chain bottlenecks.” 

One of the major issues impeding expanding access to treatment is social stigma which can facilitate a “lack of adherence to treatment”, particularly “among young people”. According to AVERT, “various reasons exist for this including the fear of disclosure and social stigma, low social support, inadequate communication and education, and depression related to living with HIV.” 

The Centre has enacted legislation both expanding state-provided care under “test and treat” strategies and prohibiting discrimination against individuals with HIV/AIDS. As part of its new strategy to combat the disease, the official expressed hope that “greater number of ART centres will help the government in identifying patients and get them adequate treatment to further reduce the burden of the disease.” Meanwhile, they acknowledged that counteracting discrimination is vital: “it requires [an] aggressive awareness campaign.”

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KARACHI: The provincial health minister on Saturday informed the Sindh Assembly that the government was establishing an endowment fund for HIV patients, particularly children, which would work to create awareness among communities.

“We are establishing an endowment fund especially for the children who form dominant majority of the current HIV problem in Larkana to create awareness among the communities so that these affected children could not pass their life by enduring continuous stigma and dishonour,” Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho said while speaking on the fifth day of general discussion on the provincial budget 2019-20.

She said that the health department in assistance with WHO had screened more than 28,000 people in Ratodero and surrounding areas and found more than 800 people affected by HIV. “Out of more than 800 people infected with HIV, more than 600 are children.”

“This issue is very serious, particularly when we have communities where such diseases are considered as stigma to children whose entire life, thus, become difficult to pass,” she said.

She said health facilities in Ratodero and other parts of Larkana district were being improved

The minister said the health department was also establishing a body for infection prevention and control in the province, which would be first of its kind in the country. She added health personnel were being trained for the purpose.

She said there were eight incinerators in seven tertiary-care hospitals across the province, which included two in the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and one each in the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, Lyari General Hospital and hospitals elsewhere in Sindh.

Similarly, five sterilisation units were also functioning in hospitals.

Dr Pechuho said the government had allocated funds for auto-destruct syringes in the next fiscal year’s budget and training of health providers had been initiated in Larkana before targeting other districts.

‘Network of ambulances across Sindh’

The provincial government, she added, had spent Rs350 million on 60 ambulances being run by the Aman Foundation in the past nine months; while Rs979m had been allocated for next fiscal year.

She said 40 more ambulances would be arranged for Karachi and the provincial government had planned to design a network of ambulances in all parts of Sindh.

She said a forensic lab would be completed by end-July. The federal government, and not the provincial government, had discontinued the Hepatitis Control Programme, she added.

She said Sindh had relatively greater (2.5 per cent) incidence of hepatitis B than Punjab’s (2.2pc). However, Punjab’s figures for hepatitis C were much bigger (8.9pc) than Sindh’s 4.9pc.

She said Sindh never hid its health indicators like other provinces. Sindh provided treatment to more than 4,000 out of more than 10,000 HIV/AIDS patients while in Punjab 8,308 out of more than 18,000 patients were being treated.

She said attacks on polio workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had gravely affected the last anti-polio campaign in Sindh and other parts of the country.

She said lady health workers’ programme would be further expanded with recruitment of more than 2,200 LHWs.

Dr Pechuho said more than 1.12m people were treated last year through services provided by the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and its affiliated units. Around 600,000 people had been treated by them so far this year, she said.

Opposition vows to make PPP accountable

Grand Democratic Alliance’s Shaharyar Mahar said “billions of rupees” had been embezzled during the past 11-year rule of Pakistan Peoples Party and the ruling party would be made accountable for it.

He said children in Thar were continuously dying and 19 more children had died since debate on the budget had begun.

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Abdul Rasheed said federal government’s budget was a recipe for disaster and it offered 100pc deficit.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan’s amnesty scheme was yet another U-turn on his part.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Khurram Sher Zaman’s exchange of words with PPP’s Sharjeel Memon created a stir in the house for a while when he said Mr Memon would also be crying while in prison.

Treasury benches began chanted slogans “go Niazi go” when Mr Zaman uttered a word, generally used by his party leader, for those who had prepared the Sindh budget.

Deputy Speaker Rehana Leghari asked him not to utter such words that affected peace in the house.

Opposition Leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi also gestured to his colleague to speak responsibly.

He said that the Sindh government was responsible for present price hike. He also alleged the provincial government was involved in huge corruption.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Ali Khurshidi said the provincial government had badly treated Karachi in the past 11 years. He said the city had been turned into a garbage dump.

Awais Shah, Mehboobuz Zaman, Hari Ram, Imdad Pitafi, Jamal Siddiqui, Tahira Bhutto, Aslam Abro, and Adeel Shahzad also spoke.

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