Vihaan – Care and Support Services

Vihaan (meaning dawn in Hindi) programme enhances treatment adherence and retention in HIV care for People Living with HIV (PLHIV) in India. The programme serves nearly 1.4 million PLHIV through its 319 Care and Support Centers spread across 28 states and 4 union territories in India. The first phase of the programme was launched in 2013 with support from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Presently, it is in its third phase of the implementation.

We are proud to complement the country’s HIV response as Care and Support component of the national programme providing comprehensive care and support services to people living with HIV. The programme was implemented in a phased manner. In each phase, the implementing strategies evolved and improved to address the needs on the ground much more efficiently. In 2015, during the second phase, the programme services were expanded to integrate HIV-TB into CSC activities. In 2017, the number of CSCs were gradually downsized from 350 to 310 CSCs that still cover all ARTs linked previously.

The Vihaan consortium is led by Alliance India and 17 state-level PLHIV networks and NGOs that in turn partner with district-level PLHIV networks and other organisations to deliver care & support services in communities.

Programme Highlights

• Differentiated Care: Based on the programme learning ‘one size does not fit all’, we adopted differentiated care approach in the current phase to prioritise both services and eligible communities for greater impact and optimum utilisation of resources.

• Transgender Care and Support Centres:  As per India HIV estimation 2017 report, HIV prevalence among the general population was estimated at 0.28% whereas prevalence among transgender and hijra (TGH) was 3.14%. Due to various barriers, only 80% tested positive TGH people reach the ART centre and a lesser percentage of TGH continue in active care. To enhance HIV care and support service uptake among TGH population, 10 TGH specific CSCs were started in areas with dense TGH population.

• Mission SAMPARK: In a joint effort with NACO, Vihaan initiated Mission Sampark drive to track all drop-out cases and link them back to treatment. After national consultation in May 2018 and subsequent data cleaning, extensive outreach activities were carried out. Out of 4,23,845 clients line list shared with Vihaan as on December 2018, 31% reported with the definite outcome. The Joint Secretary, NACO released the final report on Mission Sampark during annual CST review meeting held in Bhuvaneshwar Odisha on 14th January 2019.

• Local Resource Mobilisation: The most needed support for families affected by HIV are the needs around education and nutrition. Our local partners used Vihaan as a platform and mobilised resources from generous individuals and small enterprises. In this reporting period, they raised a sum of INR 1,69,64,139/- benefitting 35,365 PLHIV. Local resource mobilisation has been the most prominent secondary gains of the project.

Programme Results (April 2018-March 2019)

• 13,71,325 Received at least one care and support service
• 9,36,045 PLHIV received differentiated care and support services
• 36,992 Re-linked to ART services for treatment
• 1,41,011 PLHIV linked with social protection schemes and entitlements
• 38,260 Family members and partners of PLHIV were tested for HIV, out of which 3,274 found positive. Those clients were linked with the ART Centre for treatment.
• 6,19,422 PLHIV screened for TB and 5,556 diagnosed TB positive clients were linked to TB treatment.