Hyderabad, April 11: At a time when Andhra Pradesh is cowering under the spectre of HIV/AIDS, the state government has decided to shut down 266 first-level detection and counselling centres.
With the HIV/AIDS incidence rate hovering over 1 per cent in AP — all other states have successfully brought it down to less than 1 per cent — the move has set off alarms among AIDS fighters.
The state government blames the Centre for cutting down funds to these centres.
This means that more than 1.5 crore rural people in AP will have no access to Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres (ICTCs) which provide both counselling and testing facilities to suspected HIV/ AIDS patients.
The ICTCs were set up to take up programmes like Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission (PPCT) for pregnant women and the Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centres (VCTC) for voluntary testing apart from creating awareness, counselling and testing. Nearly all the 1,128 mandals headquarters in the state have one ICTC each to serve about 60,000 rural citizens. The counselling centres also provide basic medication and counselling to HIV/AIDS patients in villages.
These ICTCs are funded by the Centre through various projects. On completion of one such project in March this year, the Centre pulled the plug on APSACS, which closed 266 ICTCs on the rebound. The contract medical staff of these centres have been shown the door.
“We are asking the Central government to continue funding the ICTCs through the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
However, no assurance can be given at this point of time,” said APSACS director R V Chandravadan.
For its part, the state government has only shrugged its shoulders despite an recent assurance by Chief Minister K Rosaiah recently to provide all necessary support to HIV/AIDS programmes.
With no trace of irony, the chief minister recently asked officials to set up 350 ICTCs in primary health centres and community health centres to slash HIV prevalence levels by half in the next four years.
–Agencies–