A Central team from the National AIDS Control Organisation, New Delhi, which is in the State to evaluate the care, support and treatment programmes implemented by Tamil Nadu, has said that there are lessons here for the rest of the country to follow.

After much dilly-dallying, the Centre has finally agreed to do away with Stavudine, having long-term irreversible side-effects, with a safer drug for HIV patients, even though the switchover will cost the government double the amount.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) had in 2010 recommended to phase out Stavudine due to its severe side effects.

120,000 new HIV infections were reported in 2009.

The 12th five-year plan will strive for a 60 per cent reduction in new Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections by 2017. The plan document will also incorporate recommendations of a Planning Commission working group constituted to suggest measures to strengthen AIDS control in the country.

GUWAHATI: On the occasion of World AIDS Day, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi assured that the government may soon take initiatives to provide affordable treatments to the patients who have been suffering from HIV-HCV co-infection.

The theme of this year’s World AIDS Day is ‘Getting to zero-new HIV infection, zero-discrimination and zero-AIDS related deaths’. The programnme will continue till 2015.

UNAIDS’s World AIDS Day report for 2011, which was released on Monday, revealed a dramatic decrease of 56 per cent between 1996 and 2010 in the number of new HIV infections in India. South and South East Asia with an estimated 2,70,000 new HIV cases in 2010 showed a 40 per cent reduction but India’s figure is significant as it is the country with the largest HIV load in the region. Worldwide, with 2.7 million new HIV infections in 2010, the number of new infections went down by 21 per cent compared to 1997.

The global meltdown has started to hurt India

India

The second phase of Red Ribbon Express, a 10-coach exhibition train for creating awareness about HIV/AIDS in farflung areas of the country, was flagged-off on Tuesday by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

The express is aimed at creating awareness about HIV/AIDS.

Silent on the HIV/AIDS Bill that seeks to guarantee rights of persons infected with the deadly virus, the government has finally sought to make some compensation for its indifference towards the issue by unveiling the