Karnataka government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a $25 million (Rs.115crore) programme to scale up HIV prevention in Karnataka where an estimated five lakh people are infected with the virus.

The initiative launched by Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna is part of the Foundation's broader national HIV prevention package of $200 million over a period of five years through Avahan- the Indian AIDS initiative. Karnataka is the first state to receive the amount out of the $100 million grant announced earlier.

The other states that would get grants are Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Nagaland, according to Ashok Alexander, director, Avahan.

JVR Prasad, secretary, ministry of health and family welfare and co-chairman said 49 high profile districts were chosen for the initiative and Bellary was one of them. He referred to the anti viral therapy to be started in 2004 and said the Indian manufacturers of drugs had agreed to reduce the prices of drugs.

Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society will ensure to improve the task of providing HIV counselling and testing, behaviour change communication, condom marketing and improved diagnosis and treatment of infections covering 15 districts in five years.

Karnataka chief minister expressed that the Foundation responded quickly to the state's request to provide assistance for scaling up the HIV/AIDS prevention activities.

As far as the state was concerned it was one of the six high prevalence states in the country. Over 5 lakh people that is 1.6 per cent of the population are affected with HIV in an undiagnosed condition. Around 23,063 individuals had been diagnosed with the disease. High prevalence rate was reported in Karnataka's 15 districts out the total 27districts.

Pointing out that India was next only to South Africa in terms of people affected with HIV-infected people, the Karnataka chief minister said that India stood the risk of soon having the most number of patients if it did not act on time.

As this is affecting the productive age group, unless controlled in time it could cause severe economic-social loss to the country.

The Foundation also agreed to double the grant from the present $100 million to $200 million and Karnataka could hope for an additional grant.

There are 49 high-risk districts in the country and the disease had shown signs of stabilisation, especially in Mumbai and Chennai since 1998, following the implementation of control measures through national-level AIDS programmes. A special initiative to involve one lakh people in anti retroviral procedure would be introduced from April 2004.