Gates Foundation announces $23 million grant to India

In its efforts to create awareness among people living with HIV/AIDS and slash the soaring figure of AIDS patients, the Indian Government on Tuesday got a boost when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would make a $23 million grant to India.

The charitable Foundation yesterday entered into an agreement with the Union Government, pledging an investment of $23 million for India's HIV Prevention Response. The fund will be provided to the National AIDS Control Organization over the next three years to combat HIV.

India’s Union Health and Family Welfare Secretary P. K. Hota and Gates Foundation's Global Health Programme president Tadataka Yamada signed the agreement.

India with 5.7 million infections has the world's highest number of people living with the deadly disease and the funds will enhance the capacity of the government's HIV prevention response and will target high-risk groups such as homosexuals, prostitutes and drug users, the Indian health Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Activists say the true figure may be far higher as the sufferer fears to loose his or her status in the society, hence keep their disease a secret. This huge figure has drawn the attention of international criticizers, who blame India for the failure of government HIV/AIDS programs to distribute free anti-retroviral drugs, a set of medicines that helps manage immunity-debilitating effects in AIDS sufferers.

"The funds will be used in capacity-building in public health infrastructure. It will help us to help ourselves," said Sujatha Rao, director general of the government's National AIDS Control Organization.

The financial assistance is part of an additional $58 million committed to the Gates Foundation's India AIDS Initiative, "Avahan" project, a $258 million five-year prevention programme launched in 2003.

With this $23 million, Avahan, which focuses on Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Manipur and Nagaland, will use to train the staff at the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and State AIDS Control Societies to enhance their skills in project and financial management.

The money will also be used to fund groups that work with high risk segments of the population, such as sex workers, homosexuals, truck drivers, migrants, drug users and laborers.

The funds will be systematically distributed between 2007 and 2009, and NACO and Avahan will jointly form the implementation strategy.

Meanwhile, the Indian Govt. has planned a series of ad campaigns to create awareness among people living with HIV/AIDS. It started the campaign with information on providing free of cost Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) drugs in more then 95 state-run hospitals.

"We have been providing ART drugs free of cost to 45,000 people. But we want to scale the number to one lakh. Many people are ignorant of this fact and we want to create awareness among them," Director General of NACO, Sujatha Rao said.

The AIDS control organization has already received drugs that could treat 85,000 people and are available free of cost in 96 selected government hospitals. And, plans are under process to add a few more centres where these drugs would be made available, Rao said.