[india-drug] National guidelines for antiretroviral therapy in India

[Sunitha Srinivas <s.srinivas@ru.ac.za>]

(Source:
http://www.pharmabiz.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=20208
Thanks...SS)


NACO announces national guidelines for antiretroviral therapy in India
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, February 02, 2004 08:00 IST 
Joe C Mathew, New Delhi

The National Aids Control Organization (NACO) has come out with a set
of guidelines for antiretroviral therapy in the country. The guidelines
are intended as a reference guide for physicians, healthcare providers,
national AIDS programme managers and other health planners involved in
national HIV care and treatment programmes in India. 

The national treatment guidelines for AIDS is expected to ensure
structured antiretroviral treatment and thereby introduce a national
regimen of fixed dose ARV combinations to be used across the public and
private medical practitioners. This would prevent drug resistance, it
is learnt. 

NACO officials feel that this most recent initiative on treatment for
HIV fills a gap in the existing national AIDS control programme, makes
it more holistic and comprehensive, and carries forward the process of
more directly confronting issues of stigma and discrimination. 

The objectives of the NACO guidelines are to provide a standard
approach for the use of antiretroviral treatment (ART) to enhance
quality of comprehensive HIV/AIDS care in India, to be a source of
reference for healthcare providers belonging to various specialties who
are involved in providing health care to patients with HIV/AIDS and to
be a source of reference to HIV/AIDS programme managers and health
planners involved in national HIV care and treatment programmes. It can
also be referred by people living with HIV/AIDS, which would ultimately
help in training and advocacy at local level. The document contains
recommendations for the use of antiretroviral drugs for the treatment
of adults and adolescents in India. 

According to NACO officials, there is a growing international consensus
and pressure that treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS with
combination antiretroviral therapy in developing countries is possible.
On the basis of clinical data, both, from developed and developing
countries, there is evidence that AIDS treatment results in significant
gains in extending duration and quality of life. The antiretroviral
therapy is known to reduce HIV-related morbidity and mortality, improve
quality of life, and restore and/or preserve immunological function and
maximal and durable suppression of viral replication. 

The guideline talks about various antiretroviral drugs and doses, side
effects, choice of regimen, monitoring therapy, adherence, clinical and
laboratory monitoring, changes due to adverse effects/intolerance etc. 

There are also special chapters explaining how antiretroviral therapy
can be carried out in special cases like adolescents, women with
special reference to pregnancy, tuberculosis, immune reconstitution
syndrome and other opportunistic infections. Detailed account of how to
implement the treatment programmes at the ground level is another
interesting component of the document. 

The release of the National Guideline for Antiretroviral Therapy gains
significance in the backdrop of the central government's decision to
make available free antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS patients in the
country. It was on the eve of World AIDS Day, 2003, the Union Minister
for Health & Family Welfare, Sushma Swaraj announced that India would
introduce anti-retroviral treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS, in
a phased manner across six high prevalence states from April 1, 2004.


________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Mobile: Download the latest polyphonic ringtones.
Go to http://in.mobile.yahoo.com

Access Essential Drugs Monitor #32 at http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/mon32.shtml

The INDIA-DRUG discussion group is a partnership between SATELLIFE
(www.healthnet.org), WHO Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy
(www.who.ch), and the Delhi Society for the Promotion of the
Rational Use of Drugs (DSPRUD) in India.

To send a message to india-drug, write to: india-drug@healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe india-drug OR unsubscribe india-drug
To contact a person, send a message to: india-drug-help@healthnet.org