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To accelerate the second and third UNAIDS 90-90-90 goals

Goals & Objectives:

To address the elimination goal, SAATHII will support the implementation of strategies proposed in the NSP for accelerating scale-up of PPTCT services in the private and public healthcare sectors, across 22 States/UTs over a period of 39 months, addressing the following objectives:

Background:

India ranks third globally, in the number of HIV infections. Over the last two phases of the National AIDS Control Program (NACP-III and NACP-IV), the country has made significant progress in reducing new HIV infections and expanding care-continuum services for People Living with HIV (PLHIV). However, India‘s HIV/AIDS National Strategic Plan (NSP: 2017-24) has identified significant gaps in counselling and testing, positive detection, antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation, and early infant diagnosis, which may hinder the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV and Syphilis by 2020.

In 2016-17, about 54% of the 30.1 million estimated pregnant women were reached with HIV counselling and testing services. The burden of HIV positive pregnant women is estimated to be 35,255 (estimation for 2015); however, only 39% of them were identified by the program. Close to 96% of the 13,707 positive pregnant women were initiated on ART and uptake of early infant diagnosis (EID) was 57% (6,185 out of 10,775 live births) for first EID within 2 months.

NACO has enlisted the national NGO SAATHII, to support the scale-up and saturation envisaged in the NSP, based on its accomplishments of having leveraged a network of over 13,000 private healthcare facilities, and substantially increasing uptake of Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission of HIV (PPTCT) services in 14 states/union territories (UTs) since 2015. From January 2018 till March 2021, SAATHII has been mandated to work in 361 districts across 22 states/UTs.

The Phase-II of the project extends the activities to both the public and private health sectors in 22 states/UTs of India. The project strategy described below provides an overview of the framework, approaches, and processes that are to be used to meet the commitments to achieve EMTCT by 2020. The phase-II of Śvetana project will be implemented through regional/state units/SRs, building upon the learning and achievements of Śvetana Phase-I implemented by SAATHII and its partners, and Ahana Phase-I implemented by Plan India and their partners.

Śvetana phase II is expected to support the acceleration of India‘s progress towards the achievement of the second and third UNAIDS 90-90-90 goals: a) Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (EMTCT) and keeping their mothers alive; and b) initiating and retaining PLHIV in the care cascade for sustained viral suppression.

National Coalition of People Living with HIV in India (NCPI+) is Sub Recipient to implement project Svetana-phase II in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Partners

Principal Recipient - SAATHII