New center to fight HIV
The Jerbai Wadia Hospital for Children will provide free antiretroviral therapy (ART) to HIV-infected children, chief executive officer of the Hospital Dr Minnie Bodhanwala told The Hindu (TH) (September 16, 2019). A new center at the Hospital to deliver this service has been started under a public-private partnership model with the National AIDS Control Organisation. With the establishment of the center, children with HIV can get "holistic pediatric treatment under one roof,” stated the report.
According to a write-up received from the Hospital by Parsiana on September 29, the unit was inaugurated by Dr Y. K. Hamied, chairman of pharmaceutical company Cipla Limited. The holistic care facility will cater to children with all life-limiting and life-threatening conditions, treated at the Hospital, said the note. The service will "include palliative care support for cancer as well as non-cancer conditions,” according to the write-up.
From l: Dr Minnie Bodhanwala, Dr Y. K. Hamied, Rumana Hamied
Pediatric infectious diseases specialist Dr Ira Shah who will head the center said that patients will get free HIV medicines as well as "complete pediatric services.”
Bodhanwala stated that their HIV out patients’ department was the first such service in the city, begun in 1996. "Till date, the clinic has treated more than 900 HIV-infected children and prevented HIV in over 1,400 babies born to infected mothers,” she told TH. "Even before the (government’s) Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission of HIV (program) was available in the country, Wadia Hosptial was offering it and had brought down the transmission rate from 40% to less than two percent in these patients,” stated Bodhanwala.