ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Health has asked the Ministry of Health to initiate a mass awareness campaign through print and electronic media about HIV/Aids.

The ministry was also asked to ensure that the campaign was in consonance with "our religious and cultural values". The committee meeting, presided over by Dr Hajra Tariq Aziz, was held at the Parliament House on Monday.

Ms Aziz stressed the need for taking measures to check spread of the deadly disease among the adult population. She said due to lack of information and social taboos attached with the HIV, people did not perceive themselves to be at risk, or the effected people were hesitant to reveal it for further guidance.

Later, National HIV/Aids Programme coordinator briefed the committee on the programme. She said there were several dominant factors responsible for spread of risk behaviours in the society.

The Ministry of Health had initiated an HIV/Aids control programme in all four provinces, the AJK and the Northern Areas. The programme had been fully decentralized to provinces with full financial and administrative autonomy.

The main objective of the programme was to increase prevalence of safe behaviour and improved availability of services for sexually-transmitted infections, the coordinator said.

Ms Aziz appreciated the ministry's enhanced HIV/Aids Programme 2003-2008, however, she directed the ministry to strictly monitor the utilization of World Bank's loan by provincial health departments and NGOs.

The ministry was also directed to implement the Safe Blood Transfusion Law in letter and spirit to check the spread of the HIV and mushroom growth of private blood banks. Ms Aziz also told the ministry to involve lady health workers in providing information to the people living in rural areas about HIV/Aids.

The meeting was attended by Health Minister Nasir Khan, MNAs Dr Junaid Mumtaz Joyia, Dr Noor Jehan Panezai, Yasmeen Rehman, Belum Hussain, Onza Ehsan, Maimoona Hashmi, Malik Saifullah Khan Tiwana, Shamshad Sattar Bachani, Imrana Khawar, and the secretary and other officials of the Health Ministry.