Int Conf AIDS 2004 Jul 11-16; 15:(abstract no. E10084)
Rathore AS National AIDS Control Orgn, New Delhi, India
Issues - The Voluntary counseling and testing services has been initiated since 1997, where the facilities for testing was available in 62 centers in the country but there was no concept of individual counseling. Description - The Voluntary counseling and testing facilities were up-scaled from 2001 to 2003 where 540 centers had been established in different provinces (States) in the country and more than 4000 thousand tests have been done, 70% of them were male patients and 80% were the referred one. Almost 50% of the patients, had already been tested in private laboratories and they have come for the re-confirmation of the test. Lessons Learned - However, these centers were named as Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centers but majority of them were referred for mandatory testing before conducting any surgery or delivery of the patient. Only 20 % were the voluntary walk in patients. This provided us the clue to take up the massive training programme for the clinicians those are handling the patients in various public and private sector hospitals. We also did the Advocacy programme for the senior peoples heading the institutions of Medical services. This also gave an information that IEC activities for youth may be improved so that more voluntary patients are encouraged to get their testing done. In Sept,2003, 27,391 people have been tested, 58% of them were positive. Recommendations - The counseling services has improved the quality of living conditions for PLWHA as well as were helpful in changing the attitude of health care providers towards the PLWHAs. Therefore, it is a need to further expand these services below subdistrict level. these services should be linked with the IEC activties in the community, School AIDS Programme for adoloscents and care & support programme of the PLWHA networks. The detailed analysis is included in the final presentation.
Keywords: AEGIS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, India, Counseling, Research Design, Research, Health Services Accessibility, Private Sector, Male, Humans, organization & administration, education
