What is NACO doing to ensure that prisoners with HIV are given proper treatment?
According to information provided in a bail plea reported extensively in some Mumbai newspapers, as many as 32 HIV-positive prisoners died in the Yerawada jail between 2001 and 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, we did not have much treatment. It was only in 2004 that the ART (antiretroviral therapy) was introduced, and that too in eight centres. The treatment has now been extended to 215 centres. We need to keep in mind that this is an asymptomatic infection and little can be done if the patients are brought too late because by that time the disease would have progressed. All we can hope to do is extend a patient’s life by two to three years. A second line of treatment – in case a patient has become drug resistant – is being rolled out from this year. Jails have been covered by this line of treatment and we have informed all the jail agencies that no patient must be allowed to miss out on his ART. The date of a court hearing can be changed, but this must not be allowed to happen with his tr
