ISLAMABAD, Nov 30: Pakistan like the rest of the world is observing the World AIDS Day on Monday with the pandemic reaching its critical point threatening millions of lives in some of the most populous nations of the world.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), some two million people are infected with the disease in southeast Asia since the detection of the first case in Thailand in 1994.

Pakistan is a low prevalence but high-risk country due to increased levels of poverty, illiteracy, low spending on health and education, large number of internal and external migrants, a high proportion of adolescents and young adults and gender inequalities.

The burden of the disease is relatively low at present. As of September 2002, 1,741 cases of HIV and 231 of AIDS had been identified though the actual numbers are believed to be higher due to under-reporting and lack of an effective surveillance system. WHO and UNAIDS estimates show that there are about 70,000-80,000 people living with HIV/AIDS or about 0.1 per cent of the total adult population.

THe general speculation is that HIV/AIDS is a donor-driven agenda and though hepatitis is a major public health problem, we are focusing on HIV/AIDS. National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) under the health ministry is working on the issue of HIV/AIDS for well over two decades.

“We need to clarify the fact that hepatitis, especially B and C share similar modes of transmission as HIV/AIDS. If hepatitis has emerged as a major health problem, it should alert us that HIV also can reach devastating proportions,” comments Dr Asma Bokhari, National Manager National AIDS Control Programme.

“We address HIV in a comprehensive way by addressing the issue of Sexually Transmitted Infections in totality. Like HIV, hepatitis B and C are also sexually transmitted infections. If we are able to prevent STI transmission by one effort, we will be preventing other communicable infectious diseases in the country,” she adds.

Throughout the world, especially in South Asia, young people are at the centre of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as more than half (58 per cent) of those newly infected with HIV today are below 25 years.

A UNAIDS report says about 2.1 million young people aged 15 - 24 are living with HIV in Asia Pacific. Laura Fragiacomom, working with youth awareness at UNICEF, says fifty per cent of all new global infections occur in young people. She feels it is important that children enter adolescence with sufficient knowledge and skills to make right choices and live free of HIV.— Huma Khawar