Training programme for councillors

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, MAY 30. A blood component separation unit will be opened soon in the city under the Chennai Corporation AIDS Prevention and Control Society (CAPACS), Dr. J. Radhakrishnan, Corporation Commissioner, said here today.

A proposal to this effect has been sent to the Government and its nod is awaited, he said while inaugurating a training programme for councillors on sexually transmitted diseases and reproductory tract infection.

The programme is part of the Society's efforts to bring down the transmission of HIV through blood transfusion as also to make optimal use of blood by using blood components.

CAPACS has been sanctioned Rs. 2.16 crores during the current year. The World Bank funds, routed through the National AIDS Control Organisation Phase-II programme, will be spent towards various prevention and control programmes undertaken by the society in the city. An additional sum of Rs. 33 lakhs has been approved by the executive committee to rope in six NGOs to provide targetted intervention in bringing about change in the behaviour of the high-risk groups.

For two weeks beginning June 1, 93 camps exclusively for women, 10 for men and mobile camps will be conducted in various parts of the city by the Society to provide diagnostic and treatment facilities for reproductory tract infection and STD. The camps will target commercial sex workers, men having sex with men, truck drivers and slum dwellers.

The training programme for the councillors featured plays, slide shows and an interactive session where various clarifications were offered to them by the CAPACS officials.

Mr. C. V. Malayan, DMK leader in the council, said Tamil Nadu had a high rate of incidence of HIV/AIDS.

Dr. B. Chandramohan, Deputy Commissioner (Health), spoke.

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