ISLAMABAD, Sept 29: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has called a special meeting on Thursday for a detailed briefing on reported abnormal increase in cases of HIV/AIDS, especially among the drug addicts.

Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan will brief the prime minister on the HIV/AIDS situation in the country and the efforts being put in by the government to control the situation. Secretary Health Tariq Farook and senior government officials would also be present.

The recent data had suggested that the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS was increasing with an alarming rate of 7.6 per cent among the drug addicts during 2004 compared with the last year's figure of 0.4 per cent.

An official source, however, told Dawn that identification of a large number of HIV/AIDS cases was due to improved surveillance and monitoring system put in place by the health ministry.

The source said over seven per cent prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS was discovered when 15,000 drug addicts were tested in Karachi recently. Presently, less than five per cent of the drug addicts are provided with anti-HIV/AIDS service in Pakistan.

A high-level delegation comprising officials of the ministry of health and representatives of World Health Organisation (WHO), World Bank (WB), Global Fund, Department for International Development (DFID) and the USAID had also visited eight project offices of the national AIDS control programme in the four provinces recently to obtain the current statistics.

Three of these project offices are located in Karachi, two in Lahore and one each in Larkana, Quetta and Peshawar. The delegation after completing the tour on September 7, recommended the need for providing immediate services to the drug addicts and scaling up the efforts. It also asked for providing proper health care services to at least 20 percent of the drug addicts by September 2005.

The highest prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among the drug addicts was observed in Sindh, while increased number of cases had also been identified in Punjab, Balochistan and NWFP. According to official data, 60,000 addicts in Pakistan use syringes to inject drugs into their bodies, while the total number of heroin addicts in Pakistan is 500,000.

The source said the major reason for the high prevalence rate among the drug users was excessive use of used-syringes. According to last quarter's estimates there are 2,299 cases of HIV/AIDS. However, unofficial reports suggest that over 80,000 HIV/AIDS patients in the country have not been reported or registered with any hospital.