(1888PressRelease)
September 13, 2007 - The dramatic reduction in the Government estimate of the number of HIV/AIDS patients in India,from 5.2 to 2.5 million, may have a number of causes, the most obvious being a skewed statistical sample or some clerical typographical inversion.
Since there are no Government supplies of free second-line anti-retroviral (ART) drugs anywhere in India and since the only organizations providing these anti-HIV/AIDS drugs free, I believe, are Doctors Without Borders in Mumbai and Assam and Calcutta Rescue in West Bengal, it may be that patients whose treatment has failed on the first-line drugs available free at some Government Hospitals are now dying in sufficient numbers to exceed the number of newly diagnosed cases. Since very few patients can afford the costs of the second-line ART. Hardly a cause for congratulation.
Issues which urgently need to be addressed in India include the 4% tax levied on Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of ART, even though the manufacturers may provide substantial discounts on ART purchased by eg Calcutta Rescue, intended for free distribution.
Does a Government which plans two missions to the moon and previously sent a team to Antarctica have to extract this tax on ART at all; does it have to levy the tax on MRP, rather than on the discounted price? Due to the distances many patients have to travel to reach sources of free first-line or second-line ART, requests have been made for free passes on Government transport: so far in vain.
Trying to raise funds for the purchase of second-line ART is no easy matter. Donors, almost entirely based abroad, need persuading that there is no duplication of free supplies of second-line ART. I have used referral letters from Government Hospitals asking me to supply these drugs to named patients in order to convince prospective donors to help. Last September I was to attend fund-raising meetings abroad but could not obtain a return visa, as a UK citizen, to re-enter India after the meetings. I had waited nine months for this visa and after the West Bengal Health Minister returned from an international HIV/AIDS conference in Toronto I appealed to him to help with my visa application.
I enclosed with my appeal some of the referral letters re HIV patients. I received no reply to date, but Government Hospitals are now not allowed to send referral letters seeking help from NGOs. The result is that I can take on no more HIV/AIDS patients for free treatment, because I have no referral letters to show the donors, with which I may raise additional funds.
These difficulties also now apply to fund-raising for multi-drug resistant TB, cancer and cardiac surgery cases, all of which my organisation Calcutta Rescue tries to help with free treatment. This fatwa on referral letters may be contrasted with the referral by Kolkata Municipal Corporation's Health Department to the NGO Love and Care for Animals of stray dogs for sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination.
From Dr Jack Preger
Calcutta Rescue
Kolkata 700071.
India
