The National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) will soon link people living with HIV in Rajasthan to the Aadhaar card scheme to allow them to access social and financial programmes and to prevent duplication at treatment centres.
NACO’s pilot project, to be launched in the next fiscal, will also ensure that HIV patients are not derived of medication due to cases of duplication. NACO has already launched the pilot project in Delhi.
“HIV-positive patients taking treatment at anti-retroviral therapy (ART) centres will be linked to Aadhaar card as this will prevent duplication,” said Dr S S Chauhan, project director of the State Aids Control Society.
“Patients not requiring anti-retroviral therapy go to pre-ART centres for check up. These patients often go to different ART centres and register with false names and addresses, increasing the number of HIV patients. Even these patients will be linked with the Aadhaar card,” Chauhan said.
NACO has developed software that will provide information about HIV- positive people. Details like where the patients are registered and whether they received treatment at other centres will be known after the project is launched, Chauhan said.
The software will make it easy to track patients, contact them at their addresses or their mobile phones and bring them back for treatment, he said.
{{/usCountry}}The software will make it easy to track patients, contact them at their addresses or their mobile phones and bring them back for treatment, he said.
{{/usCountry}}At present, 30,000 people living with HIV have registered themselves for medication in Rajasthan. While 22,564 patients are being treated at ART centres, the remaining are availing of facilities at pre-ART centres.
Rajasthan has 17 ART centres and 28 link ART centres spread across 33 districts. A proposal has been sent to open full-fledged ART centres at Banswara and Sirohi, Chauhan said.