We Need Effective Services

<br>KRISHNA KUMAR RAI MBBS, MD, GP, MPH<BR>Director, National Centre for AIDS and STD Control (NCASC).

Dec. 6, 2010, 5:45 p.m. Published in Magazine Issue: Vol.: 04 No.-12 Dec. 03-2010 (Mangsir 17,2067)

What is the number of HIV positive?
As of July 2010, 16,238 were reported positive among estimated total positive of 63,528 across the country, which means 48,114 or close to 50,000 HIV positive people in Nepal are transmitting HIV new infections and making others positive without knowing that they are already infected.

What do we need to do now?
Obviously, we have to improve the quality of counseling and testing services and at the same time we have to scale up of our prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) services across the country.  Perhaps, we urgently need operational research in order to understand the cost effectiveness of our ongoing programs, to better explore underlying problems, to evaluate outcomes and impacts so that we can come up with more rational, cost effective and feasible approach that may better match local problems. Over 90 percent infections are due to unsafe sex.

How about duplication of work?

NCASC obviously does not want duplication. Although it fosters partnership in program implementation through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mechanism ensuring the quality of work, it also wants to make sure the coverage of services (comprehensive HIV/AIDS care package) to all people as per need ensuring universal access.

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