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Immunity test for AIDS to be free
January 3, 2007
Times of India
NEW DELHI: The CD-4 count test — used to gauge immunity levels of an HIV-infected patient and to assess whether damage caused by the virus requires life-saving anti-retroviral therapy (ART) — is now free for all AIDS patients.
The order making the CD-4 test free, aimed at encouraging early testing for HIV/AIDS in India and a consequent reduction in mortality, was passed by the National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) on Tuesday.
Until now, each test, conducted twice a year on every HIV patient, cost Rs 250. The test was free only for HIV-infected children and patients below the poverty line.
Confirming this to TOI, Naco's ART consultant B B Rewari said government's 101 ART centres will be notified of this decision soon. "Till October 26, 2006, each test cost Rs 500. Then we slashed the price by half. AIDS activists have been demanding a total waiver. The order was signed on Tuesday to make the test free for every HIV infected person in India," Rewari said.
Naco director general K Sujatha Rao told TOI that India is stepping up its prevention programme and hoping to reduce mortality due to AIDS. At present, India has 58 CD-4 count machines. Over 38 more are being procured.
"Blood samples of HIV patients are taken at ART centres where the test can't be carried out and are processed in 58 centres which have the CD-4 count machine," Rewari added.
The test, which predicts risk of future infections, is presently offered free to 52,000 patients already on ART in India where an estimated 5.2 million people are infected with HIV. The CD-4 count is used in combination with the viral load test which measures level of HIV in blood. The test is ordered when a person is first diagnosed with HIV as part of a baseline measurement. Tests are repeated every six months.
The CD-4 count in healthy adults ranges from 500 to 1,500 cells per cubic millimetre of blood. In HIV infected people, it goes down by 60 cells per cubic millimetre of blood per year as HIV progresses. ART is administered when an HIV-positive person registers a CD-4 count under 200.
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