July 15, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 18, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 14: The government plans to introduce pre- marriage voluntary counselling concept requiring family members of both bride and groom to opt for HIV/Aids test before wedding.

“It will be a voluntary programme wherein a questionnaire will be circulated among the couples encouraging them to have a test and in case of HIV positive proper medication be commenced immediately so that the deadly disease should not pass on to children,” Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan said at the launch of a five-year global campaign on “Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS” here on Friday.

Though only 0.1 per cent children are affected in Pakistan and HIV/Aids is a low prevalent disease in the country, because of our religious practices, its time to learn a lesson from India which used to say the same thing some two decades ago and now have a population of 5.7 million people affected with Aids, Nasir Khan said.

This is a great opportunity to stem the epidemic among most at risk adolescents and among children born to HIV positive mothers in Pakistan, he said, adding that free diagnostic for HIV/Aids test was available at Islamabad and the four provincial headquarters while free treatment therapy would also be provided to patients.

Nasir Khan, however, explained that there was no cure of this deadly disease though Retro Viral drugs could only ease out the miseries of the patient and prolong his life. The only available cure is still the prevention, he emphasised.

Senior Programme Officer Unicef Ronald Van Dijk told reporters that the current campaign focused on four key areas namely primary prevention, prevention of mother to child transmission, paediatric Aids treatment and protection of orphans and vulnerable children.

Children are the missing face of Aids and studies shows that people do not know that Aids is having a devastating impact in childhood, Ronald Van Dijk said. Globally a child dies of an Aids-related illness every minute, a young person contacts HIV every 15 seconds and 15 million children have been orphaned by Aids.

He said nearly 99 per cent of the children infected with Aids were missing out on the medicine that could keep them alive and over 90 per cent of infected pregnant women were missing out on the drugs that could prevent their babies from being born HIV- positive. Even children are missing from the development budgets of pharmaceutical companies which do not manufacture Aids drugs in paediatric formulations.

Aimed at giving children prominent place on the Aids agenda, the campaign will mitigate the impact of the epidemic on children and help keep present and future generations safe from HIV.

By addressing the affect of Aids on children, we can turn the tide of the whole pandemic, he said, adding that children were being orphaned, infected with HIV or killed by Aids because of lack of medical care for them or their parents.

Dr Asma Bokhari, Manager National Aids Control Programme, said it was a youth driven-youth focused programme which was designed with the input of the youth of the country.

The government has taken up the challenge of ensuring that children were put in the forefront of the national response to HIV/Aids, she said, adding that this campaign aimed at bringing together NGOs, religious leaders and civil society partners.