India's HIV prevention model can be adopted in many countries: Dr Harsh Vardhan

Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan yesterday addressed the Ministerial meeting of the Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV Prevention through video conference. Speaking on India’s unique HIV prevention model, Dr Vardhan said the programme is aimed at providing outreach, service delivery, counselling and testing and ensuring linkages to HIV care.

 

Indian model is centered around the concept of ‘Social Contracting’ through which the Targeted Interventions (TI) programme is implemented. He said, India’s model can be adopted and scaled up in many countries by tailoring the intervention as per local settings. He said, it can also be replicated in other prevention and disease control



programmes.

 

The Health Minister also elaborated how India protected the gains made in HIV prevention during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said, the Government of India took swift and timely action by involving communities, civil society, development partners to reach out to the last mile with a robust implementation plan for Anti-Retroviral drugs - ARV dispensation.

 

He said under the Test and Treat Policy, about 50 thousand people living with HIV who were lost to follow-up were linked back to Anti-Retroviral Treatment services through ‘Mission SAMPARK’, while Viral Load Testing facilities have been scaled up from the existing ten public sector labs to 64 labs across the country.