Port Blair, Dec 28: Two days State Level Training of site personnel for the 16th Round of HIV Sentinel Surveillance (HSS) for antenatal clinic (ANC) is being imparted on 27/12/2019 & 28/12/2019. The HIV Sentinel Surveillance will start from 1st January, 2019 – 31st March, 2019. The training programme was inaugurated on 27th December at the auditorium of G.B. Pant Hospital Port Blair, by the Chief Guest for the occasion Dr. S. P. Burma, Director of Health Services, A & N Administration. The resource person for the training is Dr. Subrata Biswas, Project Coordinator, National Institute of Cholera & Enteric Diseases (NICED), ICMR, Kolkata.
Dr. S. P. Burma, Director of Health Services motivated the participants and asked them to join together and work hard to achieve the targets given.
Dr. M. Joy, Project Director, ANACS & Project Coordinator HSS welcomed the gathering and deliberate on the overview of the programmes that is being implemented at field level to strengthen the prevention activities for HIV transmission. He also spoke on the seriousness of the issue surrounding the HIV epidemic. The vision of NACO for epidemic control by 2020 was elaborated. The ambitious treatment target of 90:90:90 was emphasized under the “test & treat policy”. The World AIDS Day, 2018 has now provided access to people to know their status voluntarily. He exhorted the participants to take advantage of the training to help prevent and control the consequences of HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Subrata Biswas, Project Coordinator, National Institute of Cholera & Enteric Diseases (NICED), ICMR, Kolkata, appreciated A & N AIDS Control Society for being the best State AIDS Control Society (SACS) for implementing HSS. 40 participants, the Medical Officers, Counsellors, Lab Technicians, Nursing Officers and Health Educators have enrolled for the training. HIV Sentinel Surveillance (HSS) is a national surveillance and will be conducted throughout India. This is one of the largest HSS systems in the world. It helps to understand the dynamics of the HIV epidemic and monitor the trends among different population groups and geographical areas and, thus, provides inputs to programme for strengthening prevention and control activities. The sentinel sites have been scaled up in a phased manner from 176 in 1998 (including 92 ANC sites) to 1323 in 2017 (including 829ANC sites).
Almost every district in the country is now covered under surveillance. Under HSS, an antenatal clinic in government or private hospitals is designated as an ANC sentinel site where 400 pregnant women (ANC attendees) are recruited. Surveillance is carried out over a period of three months. Three staff-members at each facility are given the responsibility to implement the surveillance activities. They include a doctor, who is designated as the sentinel site in-charge, a nurse or counsellor who assists in data collection and a laboratory technician responsible for collection of blood specimens.
In A & N Islands the HSS covers four ANC sites: Antenatal Clinic, G.B. Pant Hospital, Port Blair; Antenatal Clinic, CHC Rangat; Antenatal Clinic, BJR Hospital, Car Nicobar; Antenatal Clinic, PHC Garacharma. From each site 400 samples will be collected in a period of 3 months, 1st January, 2019 – 31st March, 2019.
To supervise the 16th round of HIV Sentinel Surveillance Round the State Surveillance Team (SST) and State AIDS Control Society Team (SACS) has been constituted.
Dr. Jahanara Yasmeen, AD (M & E) i/c /HSS Focal Person facilitated the training programme and will supervise the implementation of HIV Sentinel Surveillance in A & N Islands. Certificates were distributed to the participants at the end of the training.
This programme was conducted under the guidance of Dr. M. Joy, Project Director, ANACS.
