CHENNAI: While HIV epidemic remains a major public health issue in India, even with effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care available, the awareness on it is low on adherence to treatment.
According to data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Tamil Nadu is among the eight states in the country to have more than one lakh HIV cases during the year 2017.
The World Health Organisation, in its 2020 report, had said that intervention will need to focus on the populations left-behind and those who are at increased risk of getting HIV.
Taking a cue from this, the Voluntary Health Services (VHS) hospital at Tharamani in Chennai, along with the Sahodaran, a social services NGO, embarked on a campaign sponsored by GILEAD sciences, an American Research Firm.
The campaign focuses on the transgender people, to increase awareness on HIV infection, precautions, diagnosis and treatment.
Dr Joseph D Williams, Director - Projects, VHS, said the awareness campaign is named ‘U=U, undetectable is equal to un-transmissible’. “This simply means, when the HIV viral load becomes undetectable, then it becomes un-transmissible, which means a person would no more be able to sexually transmit the virus,” he said.
“A person would be able to achieve U=U, when they have a viral load less than 200 copies of HIV per millilitre of blood. This viral suppression can be achieved through adherence to long-term treatment of antiretroviral therapy (ART),” said Dr Williams, adding that this is the message they wanted to take across to the sections.
He said that the hospital had focused on spreading the awareness on transgender people, as they were at higher risk due to their psychosocial background. “Due to their limited opportunities in traditional employment, they were at higher risk of being affected,” he said.
The awareness campaigns involve roping in celebrities for reach and experts in HIV science, who would elaborately speak about the issue.
Doctors said that the positive members are also roped in for interviews, and reaching out to other community members for inclusiveness. Importance of nutrients, food and other things are also discussed.
According to data shared by the hospital, 118 positive people have been covered by the campaign while close to 10,000 people overall have been reached through social media.
“The campaign, which began in September, have so far reached to more than 1000 transgender people on the ground, while the reach in social media is much higher,” added Dr Williams.
Dr Vijayaraman of VHS, who is also part of this project, said that unlike treatment for other viral illnesses, HIV requires a life-long treatment to reduce the viral load.
“Many people stop the treatment once they feel better but again HIV starts growing in them. So, the key aspect in our campaign is to stress on the message to continue treatment until they reach U=U,” said Vijayaraman.
The campaign also focuses on diagnosing and expanding treatment to people who do not have access or knowledge about the treatment.
Sharan, campaigner with Sahodaran NGO, said that they had rope in some popular celebrities like Anuradha Sreeram, actors Prithiveeraj, RT Ganesh, Aarthi and MS Bhaskar among others to speak about this issue.
“First few months of the campaign were hard, due to the ongoing pandemic. But eventually, we were able to get people’s attention and they came to listen. We had also roped in health experts like Dr Kumarasamy, who is the head of Chennai AntiViral Research Institute Head and Ramasamy, President of TN positive network, which is a network of HIV positive people,” he said.
“Our aim is to continue this campaign to reach many more people, hopefully until one day, where it becomes a Statewide campaign, recognised by the government,” said Dr Vijayaraman.