L Deepak Singh rightly said that despite pouring in reports from different states of India of stockouts or shortages of antiretroviral medicines, "the official response of NACO and State AIDS Control Societies is that, 'there is no stockout of antiretroviral medicines. We demand justice for the marginalised people living with HIV whose lives hang in balance."
Hari Singh, Vice Chairman of Global Alliance for Human Rights, India, wrote to the government: "Due to the stockout issue, lives of many persons living with HIV including children are in danger as they cannot afford these drugs, and due to this, many are added to the 'Lost to Follow Up (LFU)' list and many are facing serious life-threatening illnesses. This will also affect the prevention efforts."
As on 27th August 2022, it has been 38-days and nights non-stop sit-in that people living with HIV have steadfastly staged outside the offices of national AIDS programme of government of India in national capital Delhi.
Keep the promise
Government's own promise to end AIDS and 95-95-95 goals of 2025 will not be met if the basic demands of people living with HIV are not met. Uninterrupted supply of HIV medicines is one of the essential cog-in-the-wheels to help people adhere to the lifelong and lifesaving antiretroviral therapy, stay virally suppressed, live fully and healthily, and become untransmittable as undetectable equals untransmittable. But if supplies are intermittent or supply chain issues continue to plague India's AIDS programme, then how will we deliver on the promise to end AIDS in next 100 months (by 2030)?
Bobby Ramakant - CNS (Citizen News Service)
(Bobby Ramakant is the Editor of CNS (Citizen News Service) and a World Health Organization (WHO) Director General's WNTD Awardee 2008. Follow him on Twitter @CNS_Health or read www.bit.ly/BobbyRamakant)
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