The Andhra Pradesh State AIDS Control Society (APSACS) is going full throttle and has set its target to contain and reverse the epidemic of HIV/AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) by the end of this fiscal year 2012-13.

To achieve its target by the year end, APSACS has already devised an aggressive action plan and had adopted multi pronged approaches to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in the state. In fact the state government had launched the third phase of National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) way back in 2007 with a goal to contain it by the end of 2012-13.

As the target year is fast approaching APSACS is accelerating its efforts to deliver its services and integrating various components of HIV (human immuno-deficiency virus) prevention, care, support and treatment.

The action plan for 2012-13 mainly focuses on high risk groups. For which Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is supporting the programme with and almost one third of budget earmarked for that. “We have given special focus on prevention of new infections from pregnant women to new born during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding. The vertical (mother to child) transmission rate without any medication is around 30 per cent. During NACP III, we were able to bring down this transmission rate to about 10 per cent with Nevirapine prophylaxis in the Mother-Baby pairs. At this juncture of transition to NACP IV, our state is now piloting the superior Triple Drug Regime which would bring down the HIV infections in the new born to around three per cent,” said C Partha Sarathi, project director, APSACS.

According to an estimate, Andhra Pradesh has almost five lakh (4.25 to 5.96) people living with HIV/AIDS and it is considered as a major public health challenge in the state. After the state government had taken up various awareness and preventive measure programmes, the epidemic has come down and new infections have declined 23 per cent from 2006 to 2009.

For the year 2012-13, the state government has embarked up on achieving ambitious targets of counselling and testing almost 35 lakh people (including 15 lakh among pregnant women) and estimating to provide ART to 1.6 lakh HIV positives through its new set up 6 ART and 18 Link ART centres.

In fact the state has shown tremendous upscale in facilities followed by uptake of services. HIV Counselling and testing facilities has gone up from 677 facilities in 2007 to almost 1733 testing facilities as on date. Private sector partners (about 225+) and 26 mobile integrated counselling and testing centres are playing crucial role in providing testing services in remote low accessible geographic pockets in the districts.

With an aggressive action plan over the past five years, APSACS has witnessed significant success and achieved controlling HIV prevalence among pregnant women. The prevalence of HIV at ante natal clinics had dropped down to less than one per cent (0.77 per cent) for the first time. Similar patterns of decline have also been observed with respect to high risk groups (HRGs). The prevalence among HRGs is 7.1 per cent among female sex workers, 10.1 per cent among male sex members, three per cent among injecting drug users and 3.2 per cent among long distance truckers, as per HSS 2010-11. “In financial year 2011-12, we have tested 14.2 lakh general clients and 11.5 lakh ANC clients. For high risk groups, we are providing a comprehensive package of prevention, care, support and treatment services for almost 1.75 lakh population with 169 targeted interventions. Then we have ‘link worker’s scheme’ in 22 districts to work at the village level,” revealed the project director.

Currently, 105 designated sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinics are being supported under HIV/AIDS control programme for management of diseases and about 244 blood banks are operational for safe blood transfusion in the State. For those who are already infected, 45 ART (Anti-Retroviral Therapy) centres, 89 Link ART centres, one Centre of Excellence, three ART plus and 34 community care centres (CCC) are  providing services to the infected patients.

Despite the success, Andhra Pradesh still accounts for the highest burden of people living with HIV/AIDS in the country. The State has been disproportionately impacted by the epidemic as one fifth of the estimated PLHAs (people living with HIV AIDS) in country are from the state.