January 19, 2008	Saturday	Muharram 09, 1429

TAXILA, Jan 18: Voluntary Counselling and Testing is a cornerstone for early access to both prevention and care and support services in the area of HIV/Aids while it is a critical component of a comprehensive response to HIV/Aids epidemic.

This was the crux of one-day workshop on ‘Syndromic case management of Sexually Transmitted Infections and Voluntary Counselling and Testing’.

The workshop was held for health service providers and general practitioners working in and around intervention areas of truckers here on Friday. The workshop was organized by ‘Hamrahi Markaz Centre’ for long route truckers. The centre was set up by Health Promotion Society in collaboration with Family Health International (FHI) and National AIDS control programme.

President Health Promotion Society and Incharge of Hamrahi Markaz, Muhammad Sadeeq addressing on the occasion said at present, Pakistan was considered to be a low prevalence but high- risk country for spread of HIV/Aids.

He said that some individuals and groups of people are especially vulnerable to HIV/Aids due to their social status, particular behaviour patterns, or other special characteristics like long route truckers.

He said that the purpose and objective of holding the workshop was the capacity building, enhancing and expanding the knowledge of the local medical practitioners for the syndrome management of sexually transmitted infections especially among the truckers and people connected with truckers industry. He said that Syndromic management refers to the approach of treating STI/RTI symptoms and signs based on the organisms most commonly responsible for each syndrome.

A more definite or etiological diagnosis may be possible in some settings with sophisticated laboratory facilities, but this is often problematic.

Laboratory tests require resources, add to the cost of treatment, may require clients to make extra visits to the clinic and almost always result in delays in treatment.

He said that WHO has developed simple flowcharts to guide health care providers in using the syndromic approach to manage seven syndromes.

Addressing to the participants Jawad Mansoor, Project coordinator Hamrahi Centre for long route truckers said that Syndromic treatment was based on identifying consistent groups of symptoms and easily recognisable signs-syndromes and providing treatment, which will deal with majority of organism responsible for producing each syndrome.

Expert on sexual diseases, Dr GN Ghori delivered his lecture on “sign , symptoms and treatment of STIs”. He said that experience from around the world indicates that unprotected sexual activity with multiple partners fuels the spread of HIV, and the limited evidence available in Pakistan suggests that all sex workers and long route truckers frequently engage in unprotected sexual activity.

He said that there are four Cs in treatment—compliance, counselling, contact tracing and condoms.

He said that studies have shown that syndromic management is only modestly better than random treatment in predicting cervical infection.

Coordinator counselling, Zia Ullah Khan gave lecture on ‘Voluntarily counselling and testing’.

He said the presence of a number of vulnerabilities and risky behavioural patterns suggest the need for urgent, prioritised, and coordinated action to curtail the emergence of a widespread epidemic.