Coverage Specific Health Insurance > Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee

The HIV epidemic is becoming a cause of much concern in developing countries like India . The 2005 estimates showed that 8.3 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in Asia and more than 2/3 rd of population (5.7 million) were in India. India follows South Africa very closely as it is the second largest in terms of numbers of HIV/AIDS reported cases. The United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS in 2003, send out warning signals stating that: " India and her neighbors stand at what epidemiologists call the " Tipping Point " in the trajectory of the disease"

With HIV posing as a mammoth public health problem, there is much concern about the high health expenditure associated with its care. Apart from ARV drugs, the People Living with HIV (PLHIV) require continued care for opportunistic infections. As it is difficult for them to finance the care they require, it becomes imperative to provide them with a financial alternative like health insurance that takes care of the associated expenditure.

Given this scenario, CIRM has partnered with the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) based in Kolkata , India which is a forum of 65,000 sex workers. It is a community based organization of , for and by the sex workers.

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) is a forum of 65,000 sex workers based in West Bengal, India. It is a community based organization of , for and by the sex workers. DMSC for the last one decade has been running HIV/AIDS targeted intervention program in 51 red light areas including the WHO acclaimed 'Sonagachi Project' which in the street setting covers a population of over 40 , 000 sex workers and 100000 clients. Besides West Bengal , DMSC recently has up scaled its program and initiated Sexual Health Intervention Program in other 5 states of the country. The Centre is working with DMSC in designing a comprehensive and broad based health insurance cover for People Living with HIV (PLHIV). The health insurance cover would include the following:

• Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART)
• Care for Opportunistic Infection (OI)
• Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT)
• Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT)
• Prevention of sexually Transmitted Infection (STI)
• Home based care (HBC),
• Periodic monitoring of CD4 count of the patients.