The Maharshtra government would soon set up a high powered committee to frame strict guidelines for more than 260 pathological laboratories in the state to carry out accurate HIV tests. This was announced by state health minister Digvijay Khanvilkar at the inaugural session of the second national HIV medicine update in the city.

The committee would comprise state director-general of public health, director of medical education and research, representatives of the Avert Society and the Mumbai AIDS Control society, will submit its report to the government in a month and a half, health minister Digvijay Khanvilkar said.

Khanvilkar said that the primary idea of the guidelines is to standardize the laboratory procedures and initially set a minimum qualification to carry out tests such as Elisa, Western Blot, PCR viral load, and CD4 count which can confirm HIV infection.

Khanvilkar stressed that any laboratory if not found adhering to the guidelines, once they are set up by the committee would be shut down. `` The consultations with HIV experts are also being held in this regard" the minister added.

While the Elisa and Western Blot tests detect HIV antibodies, the PCR Viral Load test is a genetic test that detects small HIV nucleic acid fragments in whole blood. The minister said that the veracity and reliability of these tests is key to proper diagnosis and treatment.

At the session it was also revealed that the Pune city's Ruby Hall Clinic has been selected by National Aids Control Organization (NACO) to train and educate doctors and graduating students on various HIV/AIDS related issues. Speaking to the press, Sanjay Pujari, director of the department of HIV medicine at Ruby Hall Clinic said, "The idea is to impart training to doctors from various states in four batches this year.'' According to Pujari, doctors from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will attend the first batch of training programme in March 2003.

As per the agreement between Ruby Hall and NACO, the programme will be reviewed by 2003-end.