Best foot forward

He said that the Gujarat government had recently formed a panel of allopathy and ayurveda specialists to study the disease and find out any possible treatment. The panel includes New Delhi-based ayurved doctor Dr Devendra Triguna and the top authorities of the Ayurved University, Jamnagar.

The centre, he said, should not be mistaken for a local unit talking to some patients or their kin. Instead, it will incorporate experts from skin and venereal diseases, obstetrics and gynaecology, preventive and social medicine and psychiatry departments of the Vadodara Medical College and S S G Hospital.

While Dr Yogesh Marfatia, head of the department first named, would be nodal officer for Vadodara, the Centre would actually undertake examination, counselling and curative steps of the patients or their relatives. It would also start phone counselling soon, he added.

Anyone, including patients or their kin, can contact the experts in strict confidence at the OPD No 7 at the hospital. The centre would have experts from the State health department as well as the Gujarat State AIDS Control Society, besides support from the Baroda Citizens Council BCC.