HIV Care & Support

Ongoing care and support services are crucial for people living with HIV who are on lifelong treatment. Besides treatment adherence, HIV patients need to learn how to manage side effects, opportunistic infections, and mental health issues. They live in constant uncertainty about the course and progression of the disease. These challenges get multiplied manifold  for the population that is largely poor and marginalised. Exacerbated by the HIV related stigma, the social, structural and economic barriers people face difficulty in accessing healthcare services, therefore, depriving them of their basic human rights.

A comprehensive continuum of care service provision for the improvement of the overall quality of life of people living with HIV include but not limited to:

HIV Care and Support Services Include

• Counselling and Psychosocial Support
• Community-based HIV testing
• Referral and linkages to government testing facility
• Referral and linkages to ART centre
• Referral and linkages to Prevention of Mother to Child transmission (PMTCT)
• Early detection in partner and family member
• Tracking and follow up to bring back on ART treatment
• TB screening and linkages to the treatment centre
• Linkages to state welfare schemes
• Advance disease management
• Reduce co-morbidity and mortality related to HIV

Alliance India leads a consortium of 17 state-level PLHIV networks and NGOs that work in partnership with district-level PLHIV networks and other organisations to deliver care & support services in communities at the same time working closely with more than 500 ART Centres and all State AIDS Control Society. Supported by the Global Fund since 2013, Alliance India’s Vihaan programme is currently in its fourth phase of implementation.

Vihaan is India’s largest HIV care and support programme that has a presence in 28 states and 4 union territories serving 1.6 million people living with HIV through its 319 Care and Support Centres (CSCs) spread across India. The programme has been included as a care and support component of the national HIV programme by National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).