Running risks: Sindh Aids Control Programme expected to stop services

The government has reportedly not provided funds to the programme since September last year.

KARACHI: Screening, treatment and the supply of free medicines to over 5,000 registered patients is expected to end with the Sindh Aids Control Programme running out of funds.

“The suspension of these services could take us back to the starting point,” said a government official on request of anonymity. “The programme has not been funded by the government since September.”

In the last few years, there has been a substantial increase in screening activity, which has subsequently led to a high registration of new patients into the programme. Sindh Health Secretary Dr Suresh Kumar was unavailable for comment despite several attempts to contact him.

Data collected from different state-run hospitals in the province showed that the deadly virus killed a large number of people during the last three months of 2012, and is spreading rapidly in the province.

Around 16 patients lost their lives in that period due to AIDS.

Around 80 per cent of the patients in the province are reportedly from Karachi. Around 198 cases were reported from 2004 to the start of 2012, while 326 patients were registered in the last three months of 2012. Initially, financial support for the aids control programme when it started in 2004 was provided by the World Bank. But after they stopped providing funds in 2009, the Sindh government stepped up to support the programme.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2013.