Hyderabad, Jan. 5: AIDS patients in Andhra Pradesh will get pension to pay for their medicines.

Under the initiative, possibly the country’s first, nearly 41,000 patients receiving anti-retro viral medicines from the government will be the main beneficiaries.

State information minister Anam Ramnarayan Reddy, who made the announcement after a cabinet meeting today, said AIDS patients would get Rs 200 every month.

Reddy added that over 85 per cent of the state’s over five lakh HIV positive people lived below the poverty line.

To get the assistance, patients should be getting such medicines from a government dispensary for at least six months, should have a ration card meant for below poverty-line families and shouldn’t be part of other pension schemes.

If a family has more than one patient, all of them will get the pension, Reddy said.

The scheme unveiled today is part of a larger drive over the last four years to fight HIV and AIDS in the state, which has one of the country’s largest number of patients with the disease.