SRH and HIV/AIDS Linkages at Policies, Programmes and Service ...

grass-roots based service deliveryinfrastructure available all over thecountry. At national level there is theInstitute of Post Graduate Medicineand Research, the Maternal and ChildHealth Institute (MCHTI), theInstitute of Child & Mother Health(ICMH) and 13 government medicalcollege hospitals. The services offeredare antenatal, prenatal (delivery)including comprehensive EOC servicesand postnatal care for mother andchildcare. At district level, 57 districthospitals provide antenatal and deliverycare including comprehensive EOCservices, postnatal care, EPI and childcare services.There are 90 Mother and ChildWelfare Centres (MCWC) in thecountry situated at the district, Upazilaand Union level, providing antenatalcare, normal delivery services, postnatalcare, EPI, and child healthcare. Outof these 64 MCWCs also providecomprehensive EOC services. Themajor services provided in the 397Upazila health complexes throughoutthe country are antenatal care, normaldelivery, postnatal care, EPI, FP, healtheducation, and child healthcare. Outof these, 40 Upazila Health Complexes(UHCs) also provide comprehensiveEOC services.There are 3,200 Constructed UnionHealth and Family Welfare Centres(UH & FWC) in the country. Theservices provided here are: antenatal(screening for “at risk” pregnanciesand referrals), safe deliveries throughdomiciliary follow up, postnatal care,health education and child care. Thepresent government has plans to stationgraduate doctors in all UH and FWCsin phases.Every month about 30,000 “satelliteclinics” are organised at ward andcommunity levels all over the countryto bring service facilities to the people.These include antenatal care, familyplanning, health education and EPIservices. The services are complementedby approximately 23,000 family welfareassistants and 15,000 health assistantsworking at grass root levels for basichealth and family planning servicedelivery.The SRH situation in Bangladesh canbe easily understood from the tablebelow (table 1) which shows the currentstatistics of key RH indicators.1.2 HIV and AIDSProgramme inBangladeshIn the Asia-Pacific region which hasthe second highest number in the worldof people living with HIV/AIDS,Bangladesh is fortunate to be one ofthe countries where the prevalence rateof HIV infection is low. Since the firstcase of HIV was reported in 1989,about 1,745 cases were reported as of30 th November 2009. The estimatednumber of people living with HIV inBangladesh was about 7,500 in 2007.According to UNAIDS the number ofpeople living with HIV in the countrymay be as high as 12,000 which is withinthe range of ‘low estimate’ by UNICEF’sState of the World’s Children Report2009.Although Bangladesh is still a lowprevalence country for rate of HIV7