Imphal, September 04: The official team of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights led by its chairperson has been informed of the fact the benefits of the schemes and programmes launched for providing free education and nutritional support arc not reaching the HIV infected and affected children of Manipur.

Participating in a public hearing on the issues and challenges faced by children infected and affected by HIV AIDS in Manipur at GM Hall here today, parents and guardians of the HIV infected and affected children coming from all the districts of the State apprised the team that the benefits of these schemes and programmes are not reaching the targeted groups.

Organised jointly by Manipur Network of Positive People and its NGO partners, the public hearing was attended by chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Dr Shantha Sinha and Eastern regional co-ordinator of the Kolkata-based Breastfeeding Promotion of India Dr Prabati Sengupta.

Speaking at the public hearing, a 30-year old widow and mother of two children, who herself is HIV positive, said one of her children has been tested HIV positive and the greatest difficulty she is facing is to educate her HIV positive child and take care of his nutritional support due to poverty in the family.

There is no facility for SSA, ICDS, Mid-day meal in her village, she said.

Another HIV positive widow whose one child had died and is now living with a 5-year old HIV positive daughter said she is worried who would look after her daughter after she dies.

There is no home run by the Government in the State for children orphaned by HIV and the existing children homes do not accommodate such orphans, she pointed out Participants coming from as far as Chandel, Churachandpur, Ukhrul, Tamcnglong and Bishnupur districts also drew the attention of the Commission team to the lack of a long term policy for IIIV infected/affected children in Manipur as well as for ensuring the benefits of the schemes and other developmental programmes are made available to such children.

It may be recalled here that in accordance to the report of the Manipur State AIDS Control Society, out of the blood samples of 8522 children tested between 2003 and July 2008 in Manipur, 1731 of them have been confirmed HIV positive.

Out of these HIV positive children.

109 of them are getting ART treatment from the ART Centre of RIMS Hospital and 241 of them from the ART Centre of JN Hospital.

The report further said that till March this year, the total number of HIV positive including children in Manipur is 29,147. Among this, 7513 are women.

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