Imphal, December 15 2008: With no ART centre in Tamenglong, ART patients of Tamenglong district are facing severe financial hardships to come to Imphal for receiving ART treatment.

Unable to afford the travel cost, many HIV/AIDS affected/infected people of the district did not respond to the invitation for counselling about ART.

Chaoba (name changed on request) is a 46 years old man and a carpenter by profession.

He is living with his wife, three sons and a daughter at Tamenglong district headquarters.

Both Chaoba and his wife have been under ART for the last three years.

Two of their children are also infected with HIV but for the other two children, no test has been conducted yet.

Chaoba said that he was infected with HIV/AIDS as he used to abuse drugs through intravenous injection and he has been living at Tamenglong for the last 14 years.

He started taking ART drugs by coming all the way to Imphal from Tamenglong on the advice of an NGO named AWARE based at Tamenglong, Chaoba informed.

Every month he and his wife came to Imphal to take ART drugs.

Each trip costs more than Rs 1000 in travel fare and lodging.

At times, they spent more when they have to stay put in hotels for two/three days because of bandhs or blockades.

At the initial period, there was some monetary assistance from the NGO but these days there has been no assistance from any quarter, he said.

Confiding that it has become a big burden for the family to come to Imphal every month to take ART drugs, Chaoba noted that an ART centre at Tamenglong will be a boon to all HIV/AIDS infected people of the district.

One functionary of AWARE said that seeing the difficulties being faced by people under ART, other affected people who are yet to receive ART did not respond to the NGO's invitation to come for counselling on ART.

At present, 43 people including unmarried women from Tamenglong district headquarters have been going to Imphal every month to take ART drugs.

According to information culled from Tamenglong district hospital, during the current year two women infected with HIV/AIDS have given births while two other infected women are pregnant.

Most of the infected women who earlier came to the hospital for treatment prefer to deliver at home as they feel ashamed at the hospital.

For Tamenglong district, out of 3785 people whose bloods were tested, 103 samples have been found HIV positive.

The HIV/AIDS infection rate in the district is 0.44 percent, added the hospital source.

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