Shillong, July 24: The state’s Health department has been directed to frame a comprehensive policy to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS on a mission mode in the state.
“Health department has been tasked with the responsibility of coming up with a cabinet note to envisage a comprehensive policy on a mission mode to redress and address the spread of HIV/AIDS,” said health minister Ampareen Lyngdoh after taking a meeting on Thursday.
The decision to frame the comprehensive policy was taken in the meeting that was chaired by deputy chief minister in-charge Home (Police) Prestone Tynsong and attended social welfare minister Paul Lyngdoh and eight MLAs of East Khasi Hills district.
Meanwhile, further meetings will be held in Garo Hills and Jaintia Hills to discuss the issue and develop a comprehensive strategy to fight HIV/AIDS.
“We will be consulting with bureaucrats and senior doctors to guide the way forward,” Lyngodh said.
Meanwhile, the health minister said the government would not share specific data on hotspots to avoid stigmatising individual constituencies.
Presenting an alarming statistic, Lyngdoh said the number of HIV/AIDS cases in East Khasi Hills has doubled to 3,432, with only 1,581 patients coming forward for treatment. She also revealed that a significant number of 681 patients have been lost to follow-up, which is a worrying trend.
“We have spoken only on East Khasi Hills today. In EKH, the number is very high. The highest, unfortunately, is Jaintia Hills. Both West and East Jaintia Hills have very alarming numbers but Khasi Hills is also following the trend,” the minister added.
Meghalaya ranked sixth in the country in terms of HIV/AIDS prevalence, with the North Eastern region being particularly affected.
Advocating for the state’s own laws to help deal with HIV/AIDS menace, the minister said HIV/AIDS testing should be made compulsory before marriage, as done in Goa.
According to her, awareness about the disease is no longer a major issue, but testing and screening need to be improved.
“There are certain laws in operation that don’t allow us to freely work on the testing,” she said.
Lyngdoh expressed the hope of Meghalaya having own laws on the subject, and said, “This is the first time that a group of MLAs have come forward to tell us that you have to do it.”
Further, Lyngdoh has expressed concern over the number of deaths due to loss of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) treatment in the state.
“The figure of 159 deaths due to loss of ART treatment is huge in the district. We have to make sure that everyone at least who has been tested comes into the system for necessary treatment,” she said.
Meanwhile, she stressed that prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Meghalaya is predominantly due to sexual interaction.
“Despite the fact that these numbers are huge, there could be more people in the communities and around us who are not coming forward,” she said.
Asked, the health minister said, “We are different from certain states where they have reached that stage where injecting drug users and sharing needles is a big component. In our state, we have not even been able to identify injecting drug users and prevalence of HIV/AIDS because we are not able to test citizens correctly.”
