HIV-positive kids to get treatment from early age

This is a new technology. In India it is not used for diagnosing HIV. In this,the blood samples will help identify the virus, NACO deputy director general Dr Damodar Bachani said.

Health officials said until now it was difficult to diagnose and put children on medication at an early stage as till 18 months of age,the maternal antibodies remain present in the children. It is only after antibodies vanish,the children can be diagnosed and treated. And,since they could not be treated till 18 months of age,many of them die without any treatment.

We will now be able to know the status of the child as early as 6 weeks of age and can start intervention there and then. This will help reducing the deaths amongst children, Dr Bachani said.

At present,mothers and the newborn are given nevirapine at the time of delivery to cut the risk of transmission of HIV from mother to infant. Around 30 per cent of infants contract HIV if mothers do not take the medicine,Bachani said.

NACO has already imported kits for this purpose from Germany and technicians have been trained to use the kit. The new method would be used in 700 integrated counselling and testing centres (ICTC) across the country from January.

NACO has also decided to raise eligibility limit for mothers to avail anti-retroviral treatment by raising level of CD 4 count to 350. Earlier,a mother with HIV and a CD 4 count of 250 could avail ART drugs.