More Funding Needed To Care For Indians Affected With HIV

Father Sunny Joseph has no doubts about what is required to help treat children and adults with HIV. "We need more money," he said. "We need much more, for medication especially."

The reed-thin Roman Catholic priest is administrator at Snehadaan, a community care centre located beyond the glass-fronted IT offices on the rural fringes of the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

Men and women come here for treatment they cannot get elsewhere, either through poverty, lack of medical facilities, or because their families are sick, dead, unable or too ashamed to care for them.

The iron-framed beds in the centre's scrubbed, whitewashed wards also provide a place to die with dignity.

Local facilities like Snehadaan are at the heart of India's latest five-year plan to cut infection rates, yet Joseph said budgets are tight and demand is high.

The centre receives a total of 1,350 dollars per month from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the local Karnataka Health Promotion Trust.

The Samartha Project, a five-year, 20-million-dollar US Agency for International Development (USAID) programme focusing on 12 high prevalence rural areas in Karnataka state, provides 1,200 dollars per month.

Local benefactors and the charitable trust that runs the centre also contribute.

Out of that monthly total, 1,800 to 2,000 dollars goes on drugs. The rest goes on wages and running costs.

"It's not enough," said Joseph.

Dr Nalini Mehta, national programme officer for the UNAIDS body, said India's HIV-AIDS strategy was wide-ranging and well-regarded, with a massively increased budget in recent years.