The Government Institute of Thoracic Medicine (ITM), Tambaram near Chennai, is to become a model for AIDS treatment in the country. The Union government, according to sources, is proposing to make ITM as a role model for treatment of AIDS in the country owing to the successes recorded by ITM.

The ITM is the only government institution in the country where HIV/AIDS patients are treated.

Though ITM has been the hospital for treatment of tuberculosis and thoracic related problems, AIDS patients have been admitted for treatment owing to tuberculosis, which becomes an opportunistic disease for such patients. What distinguishes the treatment at ITM is the use of Indian system of medicine, namely Siddha, along with the allopathic medicine. The ITM attributes the regaining of good immune system and increase in count of CD4 cells in blood of patients to the use of Siddha medicine.

Once designated as role model, the Union government proposes to allocate a sizeable budget to ITM for carrying out treatment and research activities using Siddha medicine. The Union Health Ministry is to be notified for the budget to be allocated, according to sources. The size of the budget to be allocated is not ascertained but sources claim the same would be sizeable.

ITM already has a grant of Rs.4.5 crore extended to it by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), US. Further grant is to come by in the form of financial assistance extended by the Unites States Agency for Industrial Development (USAIDS), which has allocated US$120 million for fighting AIDS in the country. USAID earmarked US$35 crore for Tamil Nadu in fighting AIDS, and a chunk of this money is to go to ITM.

The Union government, which has proposed priority and green status to the Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM), will then take the treatment model created by ITM to be replicated in other parts of the country where AIDS is increasingly high. No time frame has been fixed for the same. It will also assess the efficacy of Siddha medicines in the treatment of AIDS and plans to standardise the same. Use of Ayurvedic medicines will also be studied as part of the exercise.

The Union government will help ITM in installing advanced softwares to keep track of patients undergoing treatment at the latter's premises. Most patients coming for treatment are treated as outpatients whose records are not managed the same way as those of patients admitted to the hospital. The advanced software will enable ITM to keep track of the out-patients also thus enabling it to have a wide range of statistics to determine the model for treatment of HIV /AIDS. This model will be replicated by the Union government in other states where the prevelance of HIV/AIDS is on the rise.