KARACHI, May 4: In the 1990s, cases of HIV involved people who had been infected oversees. However, since 2000 the trend has changed and instances are now being reported of people getting infected inside the country.

So said the chief of the Sindh AIDS Control Programme, Dr Sharaf Ali Shah, on Saturday afternoon. He was talking to Dawn during a break in the sessions of the 16th research seminar of the National Research Institute for Fertility Care which it organized in collaboration with the Sindh AIDS Control Programme, BRIDGE and department of reproductive health of Aga Khan University.

Dr Shah said it was clear by now that a small group of people living with HIV was fairly active inside the country. This indicated that the problem of HIV was slowly growing in size.

Earlier, in his presentation on “Pathogens Causing Vaginal Discharge Among Women Attending Clinics in Sindh, he said up to 54 per cent of the women had diseases which were transmitted sexually.

The names of the STIs that were identified in women suffering from the problem were N. gonorrhoea, C. trachomatis, T. vaginalis and G. vaginalis. It was assumed that due to cultural, religious and social situation the Pakistani women generally did not have vaginal discharges.

“But our study has shown that these assumptions are not true. We do have sexually transmitted diseases in the country,” said Dr Shah.

After his presentation, a member of the audience remarked that Dr Shah’s talk had shown that sexually transmitted diseases were being transferred from one human being to another. “So, we know now that we do have transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

“At the same time, we do have HIV and AIDS. The two factors combined means that we actually have a potentially explosive situation at our hands,” opined the physician.

Dr Shah agreed with the doctor’s contention but added that the problem had so far touched a limited number of people. “We are lucky in the sense that the HIV and AIDS have so far not infiltrated the vulnerable groups in a big way.”

The chief of the Sindh AIDS Control Programme identified truckers, sex workers and khepias as vulnerable groups.