PUNE, FEB 10: India is the hot spot for HIV and Maharashtra is leading in the number of HIV positive cases, secretary general of the Indian Health Organisation (IHO) Dr I Gilada said.Speaking at the international seminar on complimentary medicine in AIDS organised by Rashtriya Shikshan Mandal here on Sunday, Dr Gilada said managing HIV patients involved providing supportive care to help increase the patients' life span, symptomatic treatment and managing opportunistic infection as there is no perfect anti-HIV drug available at present.
He stressed the need for reducing the costs for managing HIV positive patients and adopting a holistic approach to prevent the spread of the disease.
There is an urgent need for recognising the right of the child in the womb of an HIV positive mother, to ensure that it is born without carrying the infection, he said, adding that a safer way to prevent transfer of HIV infection from mother to child was to use available medicines.
Emphasising that patients should not besegregated, Dr Gilada said that treatment and proper counselling can help the patients to a large extent. Monitoring of test laboratories all over the country is also necessary, he said.
Health education, partner reduction and behavioral change, condom production and its increased use, prenatal screening and case finding, partner notification, sentimental surveillance of population at risk, early diagnosis and prompt treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, providing AIDS awareness to sex workers, public awareness, alcohol control and a strict control on the operation of quacks, he said, are some of the steps to prevent the spread of the disease.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
