What We Do
MSF has been working in Bihar since 2007. Our activities have seen a gradual transition to focus on people living with advanced HIV and life threatening opportunistic infections at Guru Gobind Singh Hospital in Patna. This focus has been driven by a lack of access to care for this extremely vulnerable population, by stigma from healthcare providers and by a lack of specialist tests and drugs.
Patients with advanced HIV have an extremely high mortality rate, with complex treatment needs covering nutrition, infection, mental health and psychosocial support.
MSF has been working in collaboration with the government to reduce the mortality and morbidity in this group of patients through increasing access to holistic care for those presenting with life-threatening opportunistic infections.
- Bihar
People living with HIV are diagnosed with advanced HIV if they have a CD4 count of less than 200 cells/mm3 or if they have certain opportunistic infections of WHO stage 3 or 4 in adult and adolescent ar all children younger than 5 years old.
People with advanced HIV may have high levels of mortality when they have life-threatening opportunistic infections like kala azar or tuberculosis.
Based on our research, 10 to 15 per cent of people living with advanced HIV need specialised management.
In 2023
In addition to the ongoing medical activities (treatment of advanced HIV in Patna, support to 7 ART
centers and health promotion activities), the project established a mobile unit to extend medical care
directly to patients in their communities. Additionally, efforts were made to enhance the quality of care by refining standard operating procedures for patient treatment and implementing WHONET, a laboratory database software, to facilitate quicker and more accurate analysis of culture samples.
