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Government Of Assam Health & Family Welfare Assam State AIDS Control Society

Home ❯ Information & Services ❯ Counseling and Support for HIV AIDS Patients

Counseling and Support for HIV AIDS Patients

  • Care, Support & Treatment services is an important component of the National AIDS Control Program and entails provision of free Anti-retroviral Therapy and quality care to the People Living with HIV (PLHIV)s.

    Various initiatives have been undertaken in the last few years like introduction of alternative first line and second line ART, Centers of Excellence for adults and pediatrics, ART plus centers, Link ART centre, Link ART plus centers and Pediatric ART.

    India has an estimated 2.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS. The free ART initiative under NACP II was launched on 1st April 2004 at eight institutions in six high prevalent states and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Since then, it has been scaled up in a phased manner. As on November 2016, a total of 528 ART centers are functional across the country including 88 ART Plus sites and 17 Center of Excellence. There are additional 1108 Link ART Centers & 361 CSCs providing ART nearer to home. There are approx. 12.28 Lakh patients are alive in HIV care out of which more than 10.05 lakh are on ART including approx. 15,500 on second line ART and 270 on third line ART.

    In the State of Assam, it is estimated that a total of more than 12000 people are infected with the virus and as on March 2017, out of which a total of 9574 numbers of PLHIV, clients have been detected and 5747 numbers of PLHIV clients are alive on Anti Retroviral Therapy treatment.

    The main objectives of this division are:

    • Functioning of ART Centers, ART Plus & Link ART Centers;
    • ICTC-ART Linkages, Pre-ART & ART data gaps,
    • Lost to Follow Up (LFU) Tracking,
    • CD4 Testing, viral load scale up,
    • Monitoring and functioning of Care Support Centers (CSC)s,
    • Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) and HIV-TB implementation.
    • To review through the proper coordination with the Govt. of Assam and different stakeholders of Assam State AIDS Control Society.
    • The regular uptake and status of state level review meetings, through State Grivances Redressal Committee (SGRC) meetings, ART-CSC coordination meetings and State Over sight Committee Meeting (SOC) etc which are supposed to be conducted at state level periodically.
    • The qualitative indicators such as Retention cascade, 12 month retention rate, LFU/Death Rates, Adherence, LFU tracking.
    • The Supply Chain Mechanism (SCM) for ARV drugs within the state from the Sacs Store,
    • Reporting and close monitoring of the data concerning SCM and regularly compiling and sending it to the National Level.
    • The recording and reporting mechanism to NACO, SACS on M & E indicators by all ARTC/ LAC and FIARTC.
    Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Program:

    To implement the Antiretroviral Therapy program, ART Centers are established where eligible persons with HIV/AIDS requiring ART are identified through laboratory services (HIV testing, CD4 Count and other required investigations) and provide free ARV drugs to eligible persons with HIV/AIDS continuously by counseling before and during treatment for ensuring drug adherence. AT present 6 ART Centers (including 2 ART Plus Centers and 1 FIART Centre) and 11 Link ART Centers (2 Link ART Plus Centers) are functioning in the state.

    To measure the CD4 counts of the ART registered patients, four CD4 testing centers have been established so that ART treatment can be initiated to the ART registered patients on accurate time. At present 4 (four) CD4 testing centers are functioning in the 4 Medical Colleges of the state.

    Care and Support Services (CSC)

    Under this service, care & support are provided to the persons infected and affected with HIV/AIDS. At present 4 CSCs are functioning in the state in NGO set up.

    Opportunistic Infection (OI) & Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) Management:

    Drugs for OI are provided and distributed free of cost to the HIV patients through the ART Centers and Link ART Centers of the state. PEP is also provided to the Health care providers all over the state through Medical Colleges, District hospitals and FRUs/CHCs (with ICTC) of the State. The drugs are made available with the Superintendents of these Hospitals.