PESHAWAR, Dec 7: Religious scholars have urged people to strictly adhere to the teachings of Islam to protect themselves from the deadly infection of HIV/Aids. “Islam calls for cleanliness and helping ill people and prohibits adultery,” said Maulana Syedul Arifeen while speaking at a quiz competition at the Markaz Uloom-i-Islamia here on Wednesday.

The competition was organized by the Pakistan Village Development Programme and Sahar, local NGOs, in collaboration with the NWFP Enhanced HIV/Aids Control Programme in connection with the World Aids Day.

More than 200 students of three religious schools took part in the event. Eight students from each madressah delivered speeches, asking the participants to practice the teachings of Islam to avoid most of the diseases.

They expressed concern over the treatment meted out to HIV/Aids patients and said that Islam called for extending help and love to patients in their trying times.

Maulana Nasimullah said that there was a dire need to spread the message of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which said that cleanliness was an important part of life.

“Use of clean syringes, transfusion of screened blood and avoidance of extramarital relations could guarantee protection from HIV/Aids,” he pointed out.

“It amounts to inviting wrath of the Almighty Allah when you hate Aids patients,” he said.

Dr Bilal Ahmad, deputy manager of the HIV/Aids control programme, said that Pakistan had recorded 3,077 cases of HIV/Aids since early eighties. “Some 466 cases have so far been detected in the NWFP.

The number could be much higher if all the people (living in the province) are screened for the disease,”

He said that as Aids was incurable and the drugs used to save the infected people were expensive, it was better to adopt preventive measures.

He said that an antiretroviral (ARV) therapy centre would start functioning at the Hayatabad Medical Complex very soon and provide free of charge diagnostic facilities. ARV drugs had been imported from India and one doctor and a nurse had returned from there after receiving training in the ARV treatment, he added.