Govt to hold 17-day statewide HIV screening camp from Feb 24

Patna: The Bihar State AIDS Control Society (BSACS), under the guidelines of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), will organise a 17-day health camp from Feb 24 to screen people living with HIV and link them to treatment.A notification issued by the Bihar state health department said 300 health camps across all 38 districts, especially in view of large-scale arrival of migrant population to Bihar during Holi, would be organised.The drive is being conducted under the ‘95:95:99’ campaign benchmarks, which aim to ensure that 95% of people living with HIV know their status, 95% of those diagnosed receive sustained antiretroviral therapy (ART), and 99% of those on treatment achieve viral suppression.District AIDS control officers have finalised the camps’ locations based on surveys of high-traffic transit points, including railway stations and bus terminals, as well as designated hotspots and migration villages where the risk of transmission is statistically higher.As many as 15 camps each have been allocated to the most populous or high-prevalence districts: Patna, Begusarai, Vaishali, Gaya, and Muzaffarpur.

Authorities have identified 12 “source migrant districts”—Patna, Begusarai, Bhojpur, Gaya, Darbhanga, Gopalganj, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Samastipur, Saran, Siwan, and Vaishali—which receive the highest volume of migrant population.Patna, as the state’s most populous place, historically records the highest number of HIV positive cases due to its dense and mixed population. Each camp will conduct a minimum of 200 tests daily.

Under a streamlined protocol, symptomatic individuals will receive confirmatory results on-site and will be scheduled for linkage to ART centres within 24 hours to begin lifelong treatment.While Bihar maintains a low HIV prevalence rate of 0.16%, BSACS officials warned that these figures are “deceptive” and likely to mask a significant number of undiagnosed cases. The campaign seeks to uncover this “hidden” population to ensure they are brought under medical supervision.All districts in Bihar remain in the “sangharshsheel”, or struggling, category under NACO’s Mission AIDS Suraksha. This classification signifies that the districts have not yet met the global 95:95:99 targets. Achieving viral suppression reduces the viral load to undetectable levels, which effectively stops further transmission and preserves the health of the people.Through the screening and treatment linkage, Bihar aims to move closer to meeting national and global targets and achieve effective HIV control by Dec 2027.