KARACHI, Oct 30: Pakistan has entered the concentrated HIV/Aids epidemic phase and it is high time policymakers, individuals, families and communities developed a clear understanding of the disease and its impact so as to come up with workable initiatives.

These observations were made by researchers and managers of HIV and Aids from the national and international agencies at the launching ceremony of a provincial media forum on HIV/Aids prevention on Tuesday here at a local hotel.

Most of the health experts and media personnel were of the view that awareness was the key to check the spread of HIV and for an effective management of Aids patients.

The programme manager of Sindh Aids Control Programme, Dr Arshad Mehmood, termed Aids a threat to the development of any country.

The unfortunate part of this health tragedy was that the people in the high-risk behaviour groups were not in a position to think or know about their HIV status either due to a lack of education and knowledge or their poor economic conditions, he said.

Dr Mehmood informed the audience that the situation was alarming in the country and particularly in Sindh. About 40 per cent of the estimated 100,000 HIV positive cases in the country lived in Sindh, including commercial sex workers and injecting drug users, he said, adding that people falling in the high-risk behaviour groups could pass on the disease to their families.

The country coordinator of UNAIDS, joint United Nations programme on HIV/Aids, Arkadiusz Majszyk, said that the efforts to control the spread of this disease in the country could be further enhanced and made fruitful by increasing the capacity of the government and the civil society units engaged in tackling Aids.

Referring to the establishment of a media forum on HIV/Aids, he said that it would greatly help in addressing the situation by sensitising the masses, influencing and advocating policymakers and monitoring the direction of HIV response.

He said that the UNAIDS was supporting the establishment of such forums in other parts of the country with the belief that it would play an important role in the identification of clear and sincere initiatives against HIV and Aids.

Dr Salman Safdar of Sindh UNAIDS, urged the media personnel to play their due role in making people with Aids acceptable to society.

Dr Niaz Memon, Additional Secretary (Public Health), Sindh, observed that the media was needed to expedite efforts to raise public awareness about the serious health conditions. Dr Qamar Abbas Zaidi, Dr Sikandar Iqbal of Sindh Aids Control Programme also spoke.

Later, the representatives of the media and officials from health agencies held a meeting on the terms of reference of the provincial media forum on HIV/Aids, wherein in principle it was agreed that the forum would create an enabling environment for effective implementation of HIV prevention programmes, among other measures, by influencing policymakers and legislators as well.

An ad-hoc committee was also constituted to work for the establishment of a fully-fledged forum of journalists on HIV/Aids prevention.