[afro-nets] Prolonging Survival Among Children Without Access to ART

[Stephen Minkin <sminkin@yahoo.com>]

Prolonging Survival Among Children Without Access to ART
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While "Access for All" may have been the theme of the World AIDS
Conference in Bangkok this year, most HIV positive children will
not have access to antiretroviral drugs. I'd like to share a pa-
per by Dr S. Bhattacharyya on strategies for prolonging survival
and improving the quality of life for such children based on his
experiences in Calcutta.

Steve Minkin
mailto:sminkin@yahoo.com


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HIV POSITIVE CHILDREN OF CALCUTTA - SURVIVAL STRATEGIES WITHOUT
ANTIRETROVIRAL DRUGS

Author: Dr. S. Bhattacharyya, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Pediat-
rics & Incharge Pediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic, Medical College, Uni-
versity of Calcutta, Calcutta, India

Summary: Pediatric HIV is rapidly progressive than adult HIV in-
fection. Antiretroviral drugs are costly and thus are beyond the
reach of the families of HIV positive children. In this study
some non-retroviral strategies were tried for the prolongation
of survival of 65 (42 males and 23 females) HIV positive chil-
dren (2-11 years) who were mostly from poor families. They were
longitudinally followed up for three and a half years at Cal-
cutta, India with regular check-up, counselling regarding high
standard of hygiene and nutrition, nutritional supplementation,
aggressive management of opportunistic infections, and CD4 count
monitoring. Significant number of children (83%) were found to
be maintaining good health, schooling and near normal CD4 count
with significant decrease in the mortality (8 %).

Full text available from
Steve Minkin
mailto:sminkin@yahoo.com