TIMERGARA: Speakers at a workshop here called for creating awareness among people from all walks of life about the deadly HIV/Aids.

The consultancy workshop on ‘causes and consequences of HIV/Aids in rural and urban communities of Pakistan’ was organised by the University of Malakand under the HEC-funded Thematic Research Project here the other day, according to a press release.

The objective of the workshop was to create awareness among the stakeholders and to develop data collection tools. Doctors, social activists, members of Association for Community Development (ACD), media personnel, religious leaders, academicians and students participated in the workshop. The speakers stressed upon the participants to raise awareness among general public regarding the causes and consequences of the HIV/Aids. They also urged people to strictly follow Islamic principles and living standards which guaranteed prevention from many diseases.

They pointed out that HIV/Aids cases had increased alarmingly in Pakistan in the recent past.

On the occasion, Mohammad Shafique, an ACD representative, shed light on the causes, preventive measures and treatment of the disease, saying it was a dilemma that HIV/Aids was not taken as a disease rather it was considered as a social stigma and other stereotypes were attached to it. “Such a negative communal perception towards HIV/Aids is augmenting the adversities of this issue, which might be impossible to handle if the perceptional negativity continues,” he observed.

Prof Hafeez ur Rehman of the Quaid-i-Azam University said the holding of the workshop was a positive move, which would help build capacity of both the general public and stakeholders to effectively eliminate or reduce the incidence of the fatal disease.

POWER SUSPENSION: Several villages of Talash valley remained without power supply for about 17 hours, locals complained. Talking to Dawn they said the power supply on Talash express feeder was disrupted at 5pm on Saturday and was restored at 10am on Sunday.

They said Ziarat, Gumbat, Shamshi Khan, Dherai and Mirzabad were hit by power outage due to unknown reasons.

A Pesco worker told Dawn that a technical fault in the line disrupted the power supply. However, he said the Pesco staff fixed the fault after hectic efforts.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2016