The Mumbai Districts AIDS Control Society (MDACS) of civic body has provided a data stating 1,131 HIV-free babies were born in the city, in the past four years. The data has been given as a response to the Right To Information (RTI) query. Since May 2015 till July 2018, the MDACS has reported the birth of 1,131 HIV-free babies from HIV-infected mothers. While the data also states that there were 25 babies born with HIV positive in the same time period. As per the Right To Information data received it also stated that all HIV-infected mothers are administered with the new multi-drug regime (MDR) during their pregnancy immediately after detection. Additional project director of MDACS, Dr Shrikala Acharya, said, “In 2014, we adopted the World Health Organisation’s B+ program, which gave the three-drugs to hospitals for free. The new three-drug regime has given hope to HIV-infected women. After the programme got implemented, we started giving the drugs to the HIV-infected mothers during the time of pregnancy as soon as they get detected. Whereas, earlier before adopting the B+program, we only started the drugs after the delivery of the baby. The early detection and giving of drugs as reduced the number of HIV positive newborn babies drastically.” As per the data, in 2015-16 there were 12 babies born with HIV positive in comparison to 378 babies born with HIV negative. Currently, in 2018-19 till July, there is only one baby born with HIV positive in comparison to 34 babies born with HIV negative. After birth, the babies can be screened for HIV infection only after six weeks. So till six weeks, the authority needs to follow the case for a screening of the babies. Sometimes, the authority fails to follow up due to lack of contact. As per the information given by BYL Nair Hospital’s public information officer, from 2015 till July 2018, they lost 38 newborn babies for follow up. Speaking about the number of babies who miss the follow-up, Dr Acharya, said, “We have 98 percent of the mothers continuing the anti-retroviral treatment (ART). Sometimes, the patients are from far away area or they don’t get back to us for further treatment. We try to track them back. We are moving towards elimination of HIV infection till 2020.”

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