Bhubaneswar: The Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres across the state which provide free medicines for HIV patients have started offering viral load testing facilities for the beneficiaries.
On February 26 this year, the Union Health Ministry had announced equipping the ART centres across the country with the viral load testing facility which helps the patients in detecting the levels of infection in their body and the doctors to determine the line of treatment accordingly.
Currently, the tests are not being conducted in Odisha but the samples are sent to Mumbai through courier under PPP mode. “The ART centres in Odisha have started offering viral load tests for people with HIV from this month. Once in every week we collect the blood samples and send them to Mumbai for testing,” Vijay Kumar Behera, Medical Officer, ART Centre, Capital Hospital from the city told
Orissa POST.
Reports are generated within 24 hours from there. Earlier, the patients were forced to travel to Kolkata; the nearest viral load testing centre for the tests. “Now we no longer depend on West Bengal,” he added.
Viral load testing is done for HIV patients to precisely measure their infection levels.
The test report helps in prescribing accurate medicines and on the line of treatment to be given.
Experts believe a negative viral load report indicates that an HIV positive person can’t transmit the disease to others. Earlier, it was restricted to limited states and cities.
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