Dhangadi, October 15

A team deployed from AIDS Health Care Foundation Nepal has started performing HIV AIDS test on migrant workers returning from India, at Bus Park and nearby hotels, in Dhangadi, Kailali.

Recently, Nepali migrant workers have started returning home from different parts of India, to celebrate Tihar.

The foundation’’s regional coordinator Madhav Panta said the organisation had been carrying out free blood test camps for returning Nepali workers.

“We have targeted labourers as they are likely to have contracted HIV AIDS,” Panta added.

Lok Raj Paneru, resource person at the antiretroviral treatment (ART) centre of Seti Zonal Hospital Dhangadi said it had started blood test and counselling service on HIV AIDS. He informed that as many as 250 people had their blood tested today.

Public Health Officer Ramesh Malami at Far-west Regional Health Directorate, Dipayal, said that a total of 6,481 people were found to be infected with HIV AIDS, while 2,824 others were taking antiretrovirals in the last fiscal 2017/18. As many as 11 ART centres are there in the area.

Some HIV-infected patients are said to have quit treatment due to reasons such as their ignorance about the treatment, geographical inconvenience and seasonal migration, among others.