PESHAWAR, Jan 20: The director-general for health, has said that the passage of the Safe Blood Transfusion Act and installation of incinerators at the hospitals, besides other measures would help to check the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Dr Jalilur Rehman, was speaking at a seminar, organised by the AIDS Consortium, NWFP, here on Tuesday. He said that there was no cure for the disease, but it could be avoided by using preventive measures such as not reusing syringes, not transfusing unscreened blood and not indulging in extra-marital activities.

Dr Mohammad Javaid Khan, provincial manager of the AIDS Control Programme, said that the AIDS consortium had been set up to carry out activities aimed at prevention of the disease through public awareness campaigns.

"AIDS has so far killed 2.2million people worldwide last year, whereas the number of infected people is 40million. The number of its victim was 3million last year and 3million new people entered the AIDS club," said, Dr Javaid. According to him, 14,000 new cases are reported every day, and 95 per cent of these were in developing countries.

The management of AIDS patients was more expensive given the fact that Pakistan spent a paltry 0.7 per cent on health sector annually. The consortium in collaboration with the health department would make efforts to reach vulnerable people and educate them in line with the cultural and religious traditions, to prevent the spread of AIDS.

"AIDS which originated in 1984, from hetero-sexual and shifted to drug-addicts also caused an economic burden and devastated the victims' families," he said, adding that the only way out of this problem was in taking preventive measures.

The enhanced AIDS control programme would extend services to the vulnerable groups through NGOs, he said and added that religious leaders and media-persons would be used to raise much- needed awareness regarding preventive measures.

Dr Ziaul Hassan, executive director of the consortium, was of the view that top priority would be accorded to financial transparency, capacity-building and tapping of human resources to make the programme a success.

According to him, quality data would be collected through network of NGOs and committed individuals to ensure foolproof planning in combating the threat posed by the disease.