AIDS Groups To Bring Free Treatment To HIV Drug Users
In ASIA

NEW DEHLI, India and LOS ANGELES, Jan. 10
/PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ -- ADVERTISEMENT

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest AIDS
organization in the United States, which operates free
AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Central
America, and Asia (including two clinics in India) and
the Asian Harm Reduction Network (AHRN), a global
information and support network created to link and
support people and programmes working throughout Asia
to stop HIV among (injecting) drug users, announce a
groundbreaking new partnership that will bring
life-saving anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to HIV
infected non-injecting (NIDUS) and injecting drug
users (IDUS) throughout Asia.

By working together, the two agencies also hope to
generate innovative multi strategic plans for ART
scale up, as well as generate and encourage technical
cooperation to enhance and better the quality of life
for those infected and affected in Asia.

"We are very pleased to announce that we have recently
signed a memorandum of understanding to work closely
together with the Asian Harm Reduction Network to
scale up ART delivery to HIV infected drug users
throughout Asia, a partnership that came about as a
result of our discussions with Mr. Ton Smits, AHRN's
Executive Director, following a meeting with AHRN's
Board of Directors in Kobe, Japan last July," said Dr.
Chinkholal Thangsing, Asia Pacific Bureau Chief for
AIDS Healthcare Foundation in a statement from AHF's
Asia Pacific Bureau in India.

"We believe that the synergy of AHF and AHRN will
heighten the awareness of ART treatment and have a
positive impact by helping improve access to HIV/AIDS
care and treatment in the region, especially among
those in marginalized groups such as the HIV infected
IDUS and NIDUS who may need AIDS treatment."

"This new partnership highlights AHRN's ongoing
commitment to recovering drug users," said Mr. Ton
Smits, Executive Director of the Asian Harm Reduction
Network. "Increased access to ARV will contribute to
stabilizing their health and lives, and assist them in
exercising their basic human rights as embedded in the
Alma Ata Declaration on Health for All.

AHRN's prior involvement in the World Health
Organization's study on 'Scaling up the Provision of
Antiretroviral Drugs (ARV) to Injecting Drug Users'
and our long working experience and extensive network
of organizations and individuals in the region provide
an ideal platform for working together with AHF to
scale up access to ARV by NIDUS and IDUS throughout
Asia."

The Alma Ata Declaration on Health for All (1978)
strongly reaffirms that health, which is a state of
complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and
not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is a
fundamental human right and that the attainment of the
highest possible level of health is a most important
world-wide social goal whose realization requires the
action of many other social and economic sectors in
addition to the health sector. Brazil has proven that
adequate access to health care is cost-effective as it
reduces economic burdens related to treatment of
opportunistic infections and hospitalization.

AIDS is truly on the doorstep of Asia, and anything
that we can do now -- providing anti-retroviral
treatment and care, offering prevention services and
linkages to support services -- to help break the
chain of infection may also help avoid the magnitude
of the crisis of AIDS that is now facing Africa," said
Michael Weinstein, AIDS Healthcare Foundation's
President. "We are honored to partner with Mr. Smits
and the Asian Harm Reduction Network in this new AIDS
treatment initiative targeting a high risk population
-- injection and non-injection drug users in Asia."

"Both AHF and AHRN are concerned about the lack of
access to quality health services for HIV infected
NIDUS and IDUS throughout Asia," said Henry E. Chang,
AHF Chief of Global Affairs in a statement from the
AHF Global secretariat in Amsterdam. "AHF has
significant expertise and experience in ART service
delivery and skills and capacity building related to
HIV/AIDS treatment and care, and we are therefore well
positioned to complement AHRN in its efforts to
enhance access to prevention, treatment and care for
NIDUS and IDUS in Asia. It is our hope that this new
treatment partnership may also one day serve as a
model for the delivery of HIV/AIDS medical services to
a specific targeted populations in
resource-constrained settings around the world."

The objectives of the new initiative under this
Memorandum of Understanding between AIDS Healthcare
Foundation and Asian Harm Reduction Network are:

* To initiate a joint collaborative project to
establish free ARV delivery services for HIV infected
NIDUS and IDUS through the creation

of linkages and networks,

* To generate innovative multi strategic plans for ART
scale up,

technical cooperation to enhance and better the
quality of life for

those infected and affected in Asia.

AHF, under its AHF Global program, has also previously
joined forces in Asia (starting in July 2004) with
Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), in India to
provide ART to patients at clinic facilities in Mysore
and Koppal in Karnataka State in Southern India. As of
November 2005, close to 400 clients were receiving
life-saving anti-retroviral treatment and care through
the partnership's clinic in Mysore in the Government
District Hospital as well as at the Koppal facility.
AHF, which has more than 18 years experience providing
HIV/AIDS medical care at its clinics and hospice in
the US (and for over four years at its global clinics
in Africa, Central America and Asia) oversees the
HIV/AIDS clinical care; SVYM, handles the social
service, organizational and operational needs on the
local level.

Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement is a registered,
voluntary social service organization started by a
group of medicos of Mysore Medical College in the year
1984. Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement has been active
in the field of HIV/AIDS for nearly 5 years and has
been pioneering the cause of prevention and capacity
building in rural and tribal areas. It has established
the Country's first sub district level voluntary
counseling and testing center (VCTC), the Country's
first rural blood storage center, and the country's
first sub district level prevention of mother to child
transmission program (PMTCT).

"The combination of commitment and expertise in
clinical, public health and management skills that are
essential for successful HIV treatment programs have
been brought together by this earlier partnership in
India," said AHF's Chang. "We now look forward to a
long, continued and successful partnership with Asian
Harm Reduction Network in the scale up and provision
of ART to IDUS and NIDUS throughout Asia as well as
continuing the fight against new infections among this
population."

For more information on the Partner Organizations in
this new MOU, please visit their respective websites:

* Asian Harm Reduction Network (AHRN) at www.ahrn.net

* AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) at
www.aidshealth.org SOURCE AIDS Healthcare Foundation

CONTACT:

UNITED STATES,

Ged Kenslea, Communications Director, Los Angeles,
+1-323-860-5225, or int'l mobile, +1-323-791-5526,
gedk@...

or

Lori Yeghiayan, Communications Specialist, Los
Angeles,
+1-323-860-5227, or mobile, +1-323-377-4312,
both of AIDS Healthcare Foundation

or

INDIA,

Chinkholal Thangsing, MD, Asia Pacific Bureau Chief of
AHF Global (New Delhi),
+91.11. (0) 98.1827.0687,
chinkholal.thangsing@...

or

The NETHERLANDS,

Henry Chang, Executive Director of AHF Global
(Amsterdam),
int'l mobile, +1-917-400-8900,
henry.chang@...

Web site: http://www.aidshealth.org
http://www.ahrn.net