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AIDS-free by 2030

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April 06, 2017

What is the issue?

  • In July 2000, the UNSC adopted Resolution 1308, calling for “urgent and exceptional actions” to mitigate the threats posed by HIV/AIDS.
  • As the first disease to be the subject of a UNSC resolution, the exceptional status of HIV/AIDS has brought about unprecedented levels of international funding allocated primarily in developing countries where responses to the disease have been scarce.

What happened then?

  • While the exceptional approach to HIV/AIDS was warranted in the earlier stages of responses at the national level, it has become increasingly ineffective over time.
  • The overdependence on international assistance, coupled with the overwhelming policy preference towards HIV/AIDS, has resulted in the marginalisation of other pressing health threats such as malnutrition.
  • Most importantly, there has been a stagnating and even declining trend of HIV/AIDS international financial assistance in recent years.
  • In light of the continuous economic boom in India and China, international funding agencies now argue that these countries should be donors instead of recipients of HIV/AIDS-specific grants.
  • Without renewed and increased commitment from international donors and recipient governments, the sustainability of future national HIV/AIDS programmes is in doubt.

What India is doing now?

  • In response to the changing global health agenda, most of these countries are prioritising the integration of HIV/AIDS programmes into existing health-related systems.
  • An integration of HIV/AIDS interventions and primary health-care systems has taken place in India from 2010 onwards.
  • For instance, six components of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP)-III merged with the NRHM in 2010.
  • The integration of HIV/AIDS responses under the umbrella health system is ongoing in the NACP-IV.
  • At the 2016 high-level meeting at the UNGA, India pledged to follow targets towards ending HIV/AIDS as a public health threat in the next five years, and ending the epidemic by 2030.
  • India is now playing a larger role in funding its HIV/AIDS programmes, two-thirds of the budget for the NACP-IV is provided by the Government of India and comes from the domestic budget.
  • Indian HIV/AIDS programmes have progressively become less dependent on foreign assistance.
  • But in order to ensure the sustainability of the HIV/AIDS interventions, continuous integration of HIV/AIDS programmes into a larger health system is required.

What could be done?

  • If the goal of ending HIV/AIDS in India by 2030 is to become reality, there not only has to be an increase in budgetary allocation to public health care but also a more concentrated effort to increase AIDS awareness.
  • Evidence suggests that many people suffering from HIV/AIDS in Asia lack the awareness that they test positive.
  • Certain levels of AIDS exceptionalism should be maintained when we perceive ending HIV/AIDS as a means to an end.

 

Source: The Hindu

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