HIV infected persons in the country, specially in the remote areas, will have better access to the treatment soon, if the current plan of the Centre to provide telemedicine facility by linking the ART centres with the centres of excellence to impart specialty services in particular gets through.

Expanding the telemedicine facility in the country to cover the HIV patients also, the Centre is setting up a pilot project in the centre of excellence at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. The project called – Project DISHA –ECHO is a joint collaboration between University of New Mexico, USA, and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), sources said.

The telemedicine facility will link ART centres in remote areas with the centres of excellence. The interaction of medical officers of ART centres with specialists at COE will promote access to better knowledge and practices that will translate into better care for the HIV patients at these ART centers..

The infrastructure and necessary equipment like telecommunications bridge, polycom cameras etc. have been received from University of New Mexico, USA and installed. The staff at MAMC has been trained. The initial seven sites identified to be linked up with this COE are ART centres at Indore, Behrampur, Raipur, Burla, Darbhanga, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital Delhi and Jammu. The project is likely to start in next two-three months time. After evaluation of outcome from this pilot project, expansion to other centres of excellence and ART centres will be considered, sources said.

The Centre is expanding the telemedicine facility to more areas during the current Plan period. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has connected 42 super-specialty hospitals with 8 mobile telemedicine vans and 200 rural and remote hospitals across the country through its geostationary satellites. So far about 3 lakh people have benefited from this programme. Facility of telemedicine will be provided in district hospitals and government medical colleges, according to the government plan.

The ISRO has been giving the technical support to the telemedicine programme in collaboration with many agencies, to extend similar facilities to the rural people who are deprived of the advanced treatments. ISRO established its space-based telemedicine network in 2001. An impact study on telemedicine on 1000 people showed that they saved 81 per cent of the cost because of savings in travel, stay and treatment in city hospitals.