राष्ट्रीय (03/09/2014) 
Africa has much to learn from India private sector initiative in curbing HIV/AIDS

NEW DELHI, September 3, 2014. Ms. Meenakshi Datta Ghosh, Senior Consultant, Independent Evaluation, Government of India, today commended the private sector for its initiative in the prevention and treatment of AIDS in India and emphasized that the African community could follow Indias lead and successfully curb the spread of the disease.

  Speaking at the first HIV/AIDS Health Conclave under the South to South HIV/AIDS Resource Exchange Project, Partnerships beyond Borders, organized by FICCI in partnership with SHARE-VHS, USAID and NACO, Ms. Ghosh stated that the primary drivers of public private participation across the management, care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS are the business organizations like FICCI, who persuade their strong member base to initiate, participate, sustain and lead some ace good management practices and the donor community along with the strong, community oriented NGOs.

  This pivot conclave facilitated by SHARE-VHS and FICCI set the stage for productive deliberations with the industry and government stakeholders from India and the focus African countries, namely Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

Narrating the history of AIDS response in India and the active participation of private players, Ms. Ghosh enumerated many instances where the private sector took the initiative of not only spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS but also engaged in preventing, testing, counselling, supporting, mitigating, treating and comprehensively addressing the challenges of fighting HIV/AIDS in India.

In light of current emerging priorities and the economic scenario in the third world nations, the role of private sector, its investments and engagements are the key for ensuring HIV/AIDS management in the long run.

Speaking about NACOs role in India, she said that NACO has been providing powerful leadership in the sphere and envisions an India where every person living with HIV has access to quality care and is treated with dignity. However NACO has, so far, followed a vertical management approach and for furthering the cause of curtailing HIV/AIDS, a horizontal approach is needed. The awareness and treatment needs to reach to the individual household levels and for that it is necessary to have a primary and secondary healthcare system which is capable of handling all the aspects related to prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

On the occasion, a Knowledge Paper Partnership beyond Borders Catalysing Solution was released. FICCI in collaboration with Feedback Consulting has attempted to understand the market potential and assessment of the focus Africa countries through the report. Healthcare has been a key challenge for the African economy. As per WHO and various government sources, Africa is home to 11 per cent of the worlds population and carries 24 per cent of the global diseases burden in human and financial costs.

The report emphasizes that the market potential of products and services in the area of HIV in the three countries (South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania) would be over US$ 50 billion in the next 10 years.

The progress India made in digital health platforms, e health, tele-diagnostics, low cost diagnostics and health workforce capacity building will be of highest value to African countries. Many of these initiatives are in entrepreneurial domain and this exchange could facilitate many African countries to leverage on the innovation ecosystem building up in India.

Speaking on SHARE Project - South to South HIV/AIDS Resource Exchange Project, Mr. Vimal Wakhlu, Co-chair, SHARE-FICCI Project Advisory Board and Chairman and Managing Director, Telecommunication Consultants India Ltd. (TCIL), said that the goal of the project is to strengthen National HIV/AIDS response in India and select African countries by facilitating technical cooperation through a bi-directional transfer of high impact policies, practices and innovations in the five target African countries, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania from May 2014 to April 2015. It is funded by USAID and managed by VHS -CHARTERED, Project Division of Voluntary Health Services, Chennai and FICCI is the co-ordinating partner.

The objectives of the programme are facilitating transfer & adoption of proven approaches in engaging private sector for HIV/health programs, assessing market potential for Indian HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment products, commodities & services in five African countries, assisting Indian companies to introduce proven HIV/AIDS products, commodities, and services in select African countries, using a business approach, assisting partnering country organizations to adopt and scale-up proven approaches to engage private sector and to introduce select Indian products  and commodities and establishing systems for dissemination of new products, technologies, services & private sector partnership experiences, relating to HIV/AIDS prevention, care, & treatment, between Indian & partnering business entities, associations etc.

Mr. John Beed, Mission Director, USAID India Mission, congratulated the Government of India on its success in HIV/AIDS and polio programmes and emphasized the importance of trilateral partnerships and partnerships with private sector for creating an AIDS-free generation.

Prof. Jayanta K. Das, Director, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, highlighted the actions that corporate sector can engage in service delivery such as HIV testing for PPTCT, access to ART, HIV &TB testing, STI clinics, care & support for PLHIV, support private blood banks, IEC & BCC in workplace and support good NGOs to develop targeted intervention sites for HRGs.

He said that for quality assurance of HIV surveillance there needs to be user-specific operational manuals and site-specific wall charts developed and centrally printed, national and regional pre-surveillance planning meetings and followed by state level trainings, extensive supervision and monitoring, data quality management double data entry, internal quality assurance in laboratories, where all positive and 5% negative samples are tested as part of external quality control and post surveillance review and feedback.


Mr. Oussama Tawil, Country Director, UNAIDS India, said, In the context of shrinking financial resources, changing development priorities and the need to consider a phased integration of key HIV-related interventions on a large scale, the achievements on AIDS in India anchored on prevention, but also closely followed by treatment, care and support should not be diluted. To ensure, that nobody is left behind, in addition to conventional partners in the AIDS response including the communities, we need to engage the private sector.
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