KARACHI, Feb 26: The reported cases of HIV in Sindh have consistently been showing an increase since January of 1996, according to a paper published in a well-known scientific journal.
In 1996 only 23 cases were reported from the province. But in 2000, the last year for which data are available, the number of reported cases was 36. In other words, there was a jump of 56.5 per cent during the five-year period from Jan 1996 to Dec 2000.
A total of 141 cases were reported during the period mentioned. The jump in the number of cases could be attributed to an increase in incidence as well as to improvement in the recording procedures.
In 1997, a total of 29 cases were reported from the second most populous province of the country. In 1998, the number of reported cases shot up to 35.
In 1999, the number dropped to 18 because of the non-availability of testing kits and similar other problems. In 2000, the number of reported cases rose to 36.
According to the paper titled “Situation of HIV/AIDS in Sindh”, published in the Infectious Diseases Journal, from 1986 to 2000 a total of 1,751 of HIV/AIDS were reported in the four provinces, the federally administered capital territory and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
The breakdown of the reported cases was as follows: Sindh, 501; Punjab, 406; NWFP, 350; Federal Centre, 313; Balochistan, 163; and AJK, 18. Two hundred and two of these cases were of full-blown AIDS.
The paper — penned by Sharaf Ali Shah, A.K. Ghauri and M.A. Memon of the Sindh Aids Control Programme — says 60 per cent of the persons whose cases were reported from 1996 to 2000 were between 18 and 40 years of age. Thirty-seven per cent of the infected people were above 40.
Nearly 89 per cent of the infected people were Pakistanis. The rest of the cases involved foreigners, most of whom were incarcerated.
Of the 141 cases reported from Sindh during the five-year period mentioned, 110 were of males. In other words, 78 per cent of the cases involved men. Thus, for every female case reported there were 3.5 other cases that involved men.
According to the paper, there could be two reasons for the low number of female cases. Either very few women actually came forward for HIV testing — owing to social and cultural reasons — or the overseas workers are mostly not women.
In more than 90 per cent of the cases, sexual intercourse was identified as the probable cause of infection. Eight infected persons gave a history of blood transfusion. Two of the infected persons were intravenous drug users.
Pakistanis working in the Gulf countries have emerged as the predominant group reported with HIV infection in Sindh, says the paper. The small business travellers, or khepias, reported an infection rate of 14 per cent, followed by prisoners (12 per cent), sexual partners of infected persons (6.4 per cent) and seamen (3.6 per cent).
Pakistan was considered to be a high risk, low prevalence country, says the paper. Low level of awareness, risky sexual behaviour, high rate of hepatitis infection, and rapidly increasing drug user population represented potentially dangerous factors.
“The present status of the HIV epidemic in Pakistan still provides us with a window of opportunity to control the spread of HIV among the general population through the adoption of appropriate strategies and learning from the global experiences,” says the report.
“The low prevalence of reported HIV infection among core groups in Sindh indicates that HIV is still confined to particular groups such as overseas Pakistani workers and their spouses which provides health professionals an important window of opportunity for a targeted approach,” concluded the paper.
