Naco's ineffiency puts kids at risk

BANGALORE: Sluggishness on the part of the National AIDS Control Organization is proving deadly for infants: their budding lives are cut short, as they die of infections, undiagnosed. For, unless a baby is 18 months old, the Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) is elusive in India.
Thanks to plodding officials at NACO, who have been putting off implementation of the EID programme since 2007.NACO had confirmed it would implement the programme in September 2009, but official sources say it has been postponed again to January.
Recently, NACO had announced EID as its national mandate. But it is yet to dispatch testing kits to conduct the test using the HIV DNA PCR machine, which can test infants within six weeks of birth.
Training for the staff at Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres (ICTC) for EID started two years ago in nine high-risk HIV states. While the staff at these centres wait for the kits, infected infants across the country continue to die undiagnosed and untreated.
2,000 NEW CASES EVERY YEAR
At present, ICTC test children above 18 months. In Karnataka alone, annually 1,800 to 2,000 new HIV-positive cases of children above 18 months, are detected in these centres. The prevalence of cases has declined, but the virus continues to spread infection. However, a third of them die within a year of birth due to low immunity and high risk of contracting opportunistic diseases.
According to official sources from Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society (KSAPS), tests will be conducted at Nimhans and St John's Hospital. "The staff at ICTC are trained to conduct the test, but we are waiting for testing kits from NACO. Two tests -- dry blood sample and whole blood sample -- are conducted to confirm the positive status of the infant. In the first stage, out of 561 ICTC centre, only 164 with a high record of ante-natal cases will be conducting the EID test," said sources.
Apart from sexual transmission, there are higher chances of viral infections being transmitted from mother to child. Though NACO has initiated the programme -- Prevention of Parent To Child Transmission (PPTCT), it is yet to be effectively implemented, due to lack of proper early infant diagnosis facility. Statistics show that 90% of infections in infants are transmitted through the mother.
HOW DOES EID HELP?
According to the Anti Retroviral Testing (ART) centre, Early Infant Diagnosis helps in early detection of disease and CD4 level to start ART drugs for children. This test helps infant access to ART and early treatment.
Secondly, since HIV-positive infants have low immunity, they need 10% more nutrition than normal children. Unfortunately, since these children are deprived of breast milk, they need to be immediately put on nutritional supplements. This prevents them from contracting opportunistic early infections like tuberculosis.
In fact, one-third of infants die before reaching one year, due to malnutrition accompanied with co-morbid problems like diarrhoea. So, early detection helps early intervention.