PESHAWAR, March 14: Speakers at a workshop called upon religious leaders to raise awareness about HIV/Aids among the masses so that people could be protected against the disease.

The workshop entitled “Aids is not a sin, but a disease”, was organised by the provincial Aids control programme in collaboration with World Health Organisation here on Tuesday.

“It is not a health problem but a social issue that had been hindering the socio-economic growth of countries,” said Dr Iqbal Khalil, adding that presently Pakistan had only 3,073 HIV/Aids patients, but the disease could still become an alarming problem in future.

He said that religious leaders should inform people about importance of the safe sex relation to put a brake on the ailment.

Dr Mohammad Zaffar, manager of the provincial HIV/Aids control programme, said that Frontier province had so far recorded 459 cases, including 57 Aids and 402 HIV, but according to the UN’s estimate, the number of patients in the NWFP could be about 11,000 if the entire population was screened for the ailment.

“Aids and hepatitis had similar mode of transmission. The later is prevalent among 10 per cent of the population and it was possible that HIV/Aids can be found in more people than recorded,” he said.

A former provincial minister Qari Roohullah said that the importance of religious scholars in prevention of diseases had been widely recognised throughout the world.

“Religious leaders should persuade people to openly express if they have HIV/Aids. It is more dangerous when you hide the disease,” he added.

People should know that Aids patients weren’t necessarily sinners, because its mode of transmission was not restricted merely to unsafe sex acts, but unscreened blood transfusion and use of contaminated syringes were also prime cause of the infection.

Qamrul Islam Siddiqui of the National Aids Control Programme, recalled that there was severe criticism when they launched involvement of religious scholars in the Aids awareness drive, but now hundreds of religious scholars were part of the programme.