Institutionalization of the NACP and Way Ahead

In India, HIV prevention and control activities started way before the reporting of the first case of HIV infection. On reporting of evidences of HIV infection from different parts of the country and varied groups, Government launched the National AIDS Control Program (NACP). The program was launched on the foundation of early interventions and Mid-Term Plan, which evolved in three phases over the period of eighteen years. With progression of time, epidemiological situation changed and knowledge/capacity to tackle HIV improved. In the course of the evolution, NACP has moved from the centrally controlled program to district driven. Also different strategies were inducted/refined and many important institutes like Task Force, a high-powered National AIDS Committee, National AIDS Control Board, National AIDS Control Organization, State AIDS Control Societies, Project Support Units/Project Management Units, National Council on AIDS, Department of AIDS Control, Technical Support Unit, District AIDS Prevention and Control Unit (DAPCU) were created. Currently program is implemented vertically with good impetus and is able to contain the spread of HIV in India. For enhancing the effectiveness and sustainability, future of the NACP is strongly linked with the well-performing DAPCU and good synergy/integration with General Health System. HIV/AIDS epidemic in India has entered into the third decade. Evidences show that this epidemic in India is of concentrated type and characterized by the heterogeneity, following the type 4 pattern, where the epidemic shifts from the most vulnerable populations [such as female sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users to bridge populations (clients of sex workers, sexually transmitted infection patients, partners of drug users, long route truck drivers, short stay cyclical single male migrants], then to the general population and from urban centers to rural areas (ruralization of epidemic) with increasing involvement of youth and women (feminization of epidemic).