PESHAWAR, March 4: The actual number of children infected with HIV in the NWFP and the tribal areas is not known because people are reluctant to report such cases due to the social stigma attached with the disease.

“We have been providing treatment to 14 children at the anti-retroviral (ARV) centre. But the number might be higher, because people are reluctant to bring their children,” said a WHO official.

The ARV centre was established at the Hayatabad Medical Complex in September 2005. The WHO official said the organisation had sent a doctor and a nurse for training to India.

He said the WHO had established four treatment centres in Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi, which were being provided with medicines on regular basis. He said the ARV centre in Peshawar had registered 145 patients, 63 of whom were being provided free treatment.

He said there was a need for a proper strategy to provide social and material support to Aids patients, which would also persuade the patients to bring their children for tests.

He said most of the patients were deported from UAE and Middle Eastern countries after being tested positive for the disease. The WHO official said the NWFP and Fata had about 460 HIV/Aids patients, who were required to consult doctors at the centre.

He expressed dissatisfaction over laboratory services for diagnoses of HIV/Aids and said there was a need for streamlining the laboratory and referral services.

He said Aids patients faced social stigma and doctors were not prepared to admit them to general hospitals.

There were cases of pregnant women being forced to deliver in hospital corridors after being refused admission to wards, he said.

“Now, we hope for a better treatment of Aids patients,” he said, adding that the ARV programme indirectly helped better social understanding of the disease.