KARACHI   -   The officials of Sindh Health Department met with the UN Partners and Doctors from different institutions across the province for the Inter Agency HIV Response Coordination meeting.

The meeting took place at Movenpick Hotel, Karachi.

During this meeting the Sindh Government HIV Outbreak Response was discussed. The HIV outbreak response plan includes multiple targets like: Enhancing Capacities of health workers and institutions for managing HIV outbreaks, Strengthening Health systems for continuum of prevention, treatment, care and support services for HIV/AIDS, Strengthening communities, social mobilization, strategic communication and advocacy initiatives and Sustained quality HIV response in the province.

All above targets have been given specific timelines and the responsibilities have been distributed between SACP, DoH, SBTA, Drug Control Department, DARP, SHCC and District Admins. The contributing partners for all these targets are WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, AKUH, DUHS, Population Welfare Department, UNFPA, USAID, SIUT, MMIDSPS.

The outbreak response plan was initially devised by the Sindh Health Department, SACP and the technical teams of UN Partners based on the initial response of WHO HIV Outbreak Investigation Mission in Larkana.

This immediate short term plan which was based on 4 localized technical working groups – Epidemiology, Treatment and Care, Infection Prevention Control and Community Engagement and Response has been made fully functional with teams on ground. A fifth group was added to this plan in the meeting today by the name of Resource Mobilization. The Resource Mobilization group will support in oversight and functionality of all the other groups formed earlier.

It was also decided in the meeting that an HIV behavioural and biological survey will also be conducted in all prison setups from July 2019 onwards by SACP and DoH.

The meeting was attended by Sectary Health Sindh, DG Health Sindh, Technical Sectary Health Sindh, CEO PPHI, CEO SHCC, Program Manager LHW/ TB/SACP/SBTA/Hepatitis/Child Survival Program, officials from AKUH, SIUT, DUHS and UN Partners.