User:Jvrprasadarao

 Biography - Prasada Rao JVR  (Jonnalagadda Venkatarama Prasada Rao)

Former Union Health Secretary, Government of India, Prasada Rao is the Special Envoy to the Secretary General United Nations on HIV/AIDS for the Asia Pacific region. In this capacity Prasada Rao acts as the representative of the Secretary General to advocate with countries in the region on important policy and strategic issues connected with HIV/AIDS.

From 1997 to 2002, he served as the Director of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and Additional Secretary Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.He was instrumental in successfully negotiating a large donor assistance of $ 200 million for the Second Phase of National AIDS Control Programme ( NACP II ) from World Bank and bilateral agencies like USAID, DFID, AusAID and bringing all these donors under one umbrella of donor assistance.

Prasada Rao went on to decentralize the AIDS response to State level by facilitating constitution of 26 autonomous State AIDS Control Societies and two Urban Societies for Mumbai and Chennai.This has facilitated faster fund flow to the programme and increased effectiveness of implementation several times.

Another first that was achieved under Prasada Rao’s leadership was initiation of Targetted Interventions (TIs)  for key affected populations of sex workers and clients, injecting drug users, men who have sex with men and transgender communities.These intervention models were later adopted by AVAHAN programme in India and in many Asia Pacific countries as best practices.

Prasada Rao devised and put into operation a national level sentinel surveillance system for tracking the epidemic which was the first of its kind in Asia and the Pacific. India was one of the earliest countries to come out with evidence based estimation for national HIV prevalence which is regularly updated by NACO even now.

Prasada Rao took several initiatives to bring in meaningful participation of communities in the national response. He activated the National AIDS Committee (NAC) as a multi sectoral advocacy forum for AIDS and enlisted civil society support to the national programme.

As Secretary for Health and Family Welfare Departments from 2002 to 2004, he has made immense contribution to the health sector development and was instrumental in drafting the National AIDS Prevention and Control Policy (2002) and the National Blood Transfusion Policy of India (2002). It was during this time that Government of India launched the ART programme which was announced on World AIDS Day 2013.It has now become one of the largest treatment programmes in Asia. He also negotiated an acceptable set of rates for the ARVs with Indian generic manufacturers and brought down the costs appreciably.

Between 2002 and 2004, Prasada Rao led the Indian delegation to the WHO convened Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and followed up with a comprehensive national legislation on tobacco control while he was Health Secretary Government of India.

He was closely associated with the development of the National Health Policy 2002 in which importance of Public Health education and access to quality health care were strongly emphasized. As Health Secretary, he promoted the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) as a public private partnership which has now developed into a premier public health institution in the country.

 Contributions at UNAIDS 

At the regional and global level, Prasada Rao made immense contributions to AIDS response as the Regional Director of UNAIDS for Asia Pacific and currently as the Special Envoy of UN Secretary General. He functioned as the Member Secretary of three independent Commissions, the Commission on AIDS in Asia, Commission on AIDS in Pacific and the Global Commission on HIV and Law.

From 1991 to 1996 Prasada Rao served as the Joint Secretary in the Department of Ocean Sciences.He led the Indian delegation several times during the five years to the crucial meetings to negotiate the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Antarctic Treaty.He led the efforts of the Government of India to establish an Antarctic Research Centre in Goa and a National Institute of Ocean Technology in Chennai.

 Early Career Contributions 

Prasada Rao served in the State Government of West Bengal from 1969 to 1991 in various capacities. As the Additional District Magistrate in Nadia district in 1970-71, he organised relief and rehabilitation work for refugees fleeing neighbouring East Pakistan and later for their return and rehabilitation in the new country, Bangladesh. During the politically turbulent years in West Bengal politics, Prasada Rao served as the District Magistrate in Hooghly and Burdwan, two very important districts in the State. He served as the Chief Tax Administrator for the State from 1986 to 1989 and later as the Special Secretary Finance Department from 1989 to 91 before moving to Government of India, New Delhi.

 Background 

Prasada Rao hails from the State of Andhra Pradesh and had his formal education in Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. He did his post graduation in Nuclear Physics and later joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1967.

During his tenure in NACO and later in UNAIDS and as the Special Envoy on AIDS, Prasada Rao wrote several articles and op eds on the AIDS response globally and in India.They were appreciated for their honest and forthright assessment of the AIDS situation and the challenges facing the response.

 Affiliations 

Prasada Rao was conferred an Honorary Doctorate (D.Litt) by Jodhpur University in India for his outstanding contributions to public health.

He serves on the Board of the Public Health Foundation of India which was established in 2006 largely due to his initiative to start world class public health schools imparting public health education in India.

He is also a member of the Board of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Brighton,UK and Plan India, New Delhi.