With the funding pattern for India’s HIV/AIDS control programme significantly reversed owing to economic recession and changing priorities of global NGOs, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday approved a gross budgetary support of Rs 8632.77 crore for implementation of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) Phase-IV, aimed at accelerating the reversal process and ensuring integration of the programme response.
The funding pattern reversal will, henceforth, see India meeting 76 per cent of the financial burden on its own, with foreign donors pitching in for the remaining 24 per cent. This is in sharp contrast to the 75:25 pattern wherein India had to take care of just the 25 per cent with international donors meeting the rest. The total cost of Phase IV would be Rs 11,394 crore.
There was apprehension of India’s various HIV/AIDS programmes proposed to be undertaken under the (NACP) IV getting hampered. Phase IV primarily focusses on reducing infection and prevention of transmission of the deadly disease in the country.
The main objective will be to reduce new infections by 50 per cent (2007 Baseline of NACP III) and provide comprehensive care and support to all persons living with HIV/AIDS and treatment services to the needy. The NACP III was launched in 2007 and ended last year.
Sources in the Ministry said key funding agencies like Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (The Global Fund), UK Department For International Development (DFID), and Gates Foundation have already cut down their contributions to the India’s AIDS control programme.
Given the scenario, external assistance would now stand at just `2,762 crore including the soft loan of Rs 1,275 crore to be provided by the World Bank.
The Global Fund had slashed the budget for the period April 2010 to March 2016 from $530 million to $420 million, while the Gates Foundation had in 2011 announced its decision to wrap up its $338 million fund programme after 2012, the sources added.
Indiais home to the world’s third highest caseload with 2.5 million infections after Nigeria and South Africa. Though cases have reduced by over 50 per cent over the last ten years, challenges remain.
Of the 24 lakh HIV positive patients, only around 3.50 lakh are getting life saving anti-retroviral therapy (ART). While some patients have developed resistance to first-line ART, there is a little money for expensive second and third line treatments.
Moreover, reports of HIV cases showing signs of rising in parts of New Delhi, Mumbai, and the North and North-East among other areas is another area of concern.