The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, through the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO), will soon roll out free drugs for second-line antiretroviral treatment (ART) of HIV positive children in 10 states.

Ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, the news comes as a relief to over 1,400 children in the country who have failed to respond to first-line drugs available free at ART centres across the country. In January 2008, the government already introduced second-line treatment for adults not responding to first-line drugs.

According to NACO guidelines, only patients who show treatment failure will be put on the second line of drugs. Centres in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Chandigarh and Delhi will provide drugs for second-line ART. In Mumbai, Byculla-based state-run JJ Hospital (a centre of excellence for HIV treatment in Maharashtra) and the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital in Sion (one of the regional centres for treatment of HIV positive children) will offer second-line drugs.

Trends, according to experts, indicate that the rate of treatment failure at the end of three years of ART is one per cent among children. “About one percent of pediatric cases put on first line of ART fails to respond and needs to be shifted to second-line therapy. In Sion Hospital, about 500 children are on ART, of which five to six require second-line therapy,” said Dr Mamta Manglani, pediatric HIV specialist at Sion.

“At JJ, of the 380 children on first line treatment, few cases will require the second line of treatment. This will be a new hope for infected children,” said Dr Alaka Deshpande, who is in charge of the ART centre at JJ Hospital.

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