October 9, 2003	Thursday	Sha’aban 12, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: The government is launching an enhanced HIV/AIDS control programme, spread over six years, to prevent HIV from vulnerable groups and spreading to the general adult population.

This was disclosed during a media consultation workshop on HIV/AIDS organized by the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) in collaboration with Unicef and WHO here at a local hotel on Wednesday.

The main purpose of the programme, to be implemented in all the four provinces, the AJK and Northern Areas, would be to avoid stigmatization of the vulnerable population by bringing behavioural change through constant education.

Executive Director, National Institute of Health (NIH), Dr Athar Saeed Dil, Unicef representative Omar Abdi, Dr Asma Bokhari programme manager NACP, Qamarul Islam Siddiqui and other experts participated in the one-day workshop, initially planned for two days.

The programme is aimed at increasing prevalence of safe behaviour among vulnerable population including sex workers, eunuchs, homosexuals, injecting drug users and long distance truck drivers.

Under the programme, five HIV/AIDS centres would be set up in five hospitals in Islamabad and four provincial capitals. These centres will be set up in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), Lady Reading Hospital and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Sciences (JPMC) to train health professionals and clinical management of the HIV victims.

Dr Asma Bokhari said although people were ready to listen to a clear message regarding different diseases, there were many barriers because of self censorship in media. She said the country’s high fertility rate of 5.6 per cent, low contraceptive use, highest per capita usage of injections in the world suggested the potential for rapid spread of HIV.

The youth between the ages of 15 to 25 are the main target of the programme. Campaigns would be launched to sensitized religious leaders, Madressahs, policymakers, Nazims, teachers and lady health workers. Voluntary counselling centres would be set up in 12 big cities.

Transmission of HIV through blood transfusion would be reduced by establishing national and provincial blood transfusion committees, human resource development, quality assurance, monitoring, supervision systems development and blood screening for HIV, hepatitis B and C.

The programme also intended to strengthen capacity of public and private sector and NGOs to effectively manage HIV/AIDS programme. Sex is a major mode of transmission of HIV in Pakistan which stands at 55.58 per cent, blood and blood products, 16 per cent; injecting drug users, 3.3 per cent; mother-to-child transmission, 2.42 per cent and others 34 per cent.

The age-wise distribution suggested that the number of HIV carriers among children (under age 5) was 1.3 per cent, from five to 15 years, 0.5 per cent; 15 to 29 years, 22 per cent; 30 to 49 years, 47 per cent; above 50, 2.8 per cent.

According to the National Drug Assessment Study 2000, there are approximately 60,000 injecting drug users in the country which carried the potential for extremely rapid spread of HIV once the virus enters this population.