The media reports, pleadings of patients and immolation threat of an activist have not been able to wake up the Government from its sleep. HIV drugs are still unavailable in the State and the officials, both at State and national level, are indulging in a blame game.
On one hand, officials in the State say that they are not receiving the drugs from the national authority; whereas the officials of National AIDS Control Society (NACS) say that they have asked the States to arrange the drugs on their own. There are more than 16,000 HIV patients in the State identified by State AIDS Control Society (SACS). Around 6,500 need HIV drugs on a daily basis. An adult is prescribed two doses of the medicine in a day whereas children require one dose every day.
“My medicines exhausted on February 14 and I am getting sicker day-by-day. If the Government cannot provide us the medicines, it should transfer us to other States which are not facing this problem,” said a second line HIV patient who has been surviving without drugs since a month. He is suffering from fever, stomach and skin infection which has made him bed-ridden.
Normally, when a person runs fever it takes him two-three days to recover with the help of medicines. But in case of an HIV infected patient, even minor ailments become incurable as the body loses its immune power. In many cases, HIV patients die not because of some severe illness but from common but prolonged fever.\\ “If we are not getting the order from Delhi, there is nothing we can do about it,” said Vijay Shyam Thakur, Store Officer of the SACS.
However, all the States in the country are independent to place orders for the HIV drugs according to the demand from patients. Clearing the stand of NACS, Director Dr BB Rewari said that they are aware of the situation in Chhattisgarh. “It has been more than ten days that we issued directives to the State asking them not to depend on Delhi for their patients. They can place the orders on their own,” he told The Pioneer over phone from New Delhi.
But SACS officials in the State have a different story to tell. Accepting that the NACS has issues the above mentioned directive, Dr SK Binjhwar, Project Director of SACS, said that the process of placing orders requires time. “We have asked Dr BR Ambedkar Hospital to place an order but it is not an overnight process,” he said. We are trying to outsource the medicines from other States,” said Binjhwar.
Presently, these is no cure for HIV or AIDS but an infected person can live a healthy life for 15-20 years if he religiously sticks to his medicines, exercise routine and diet chart. But missing even a few doses can have an adverse impact of a patient’s health.
“If the medicines are not made available in all the districts soon, I will immolate myself in public”, NGO worker K Mukesh had said in a press conference in the city on March 3. The second line drugs are not available in the centres in any of the 27 districts in Chhattisgarh. The patients cannot buy it from medical stores or private hospitals as it is available only with the Government Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) centres