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The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss said that there are five future challenges in combating HIV/AIDS in the country. Addressing the first National AIDS Society Conference here today, the Minister said that the first challenge is the scale and diversity of the responses. HIV/AIDS can only be reversed through reinforcing our agenda on prevention across every segment of population, said Dr. Ramadoss. The Minister said that a new programme of health education is to be started in all schools. It will focus on public health awareness, fitness as well as AIDS prevention. The second challenge was the response from the private sector. The Health Minister said that there was a need to strengthen public-private partnership by involvement of corporate sector particularly for workplace intervention.
The third challenge was to improve the healthcare system capacity while the fourth was the strengthening of blood banks to prevent spread of HIV/AIDS through blood transfusion. He said to prevent AIDS spreading through infected needles all immunization is to be carried out through auto-disabled syringes.
The fifth challenge, the Minister said was to increase Government’s care and support programme. He said the number of hospitals giving anti-retroviral treatment would be increased to 100 from the present 25 and about 100,000 patients will be covered in the next three to five years.
The Minister also said that a legislation will soon be brought against discrimination of women and children affected by HIV/AIDS. People living with HIV/AIDS face stigma and discrimination and, therefore, care and support to such patients is indeed to be mainstreamed through general health services.
The AIDS Society Conference is being attended by over 450 delegates from India and abroad.
EK/MK.
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