LARKANA, Dec 1: A walk was held here on Sunday to mark the World AIDS Day.

The walk was held under the banner of the Ghazai Social Welfare Association.

Lala Maqbool Mashori, vice chairman of the Sindh AIDS’s network, led the walk which started from the Government Degree College and stopped in front of the press club.

Around 100 participants from various walks of life took part in the walk.

Addressing the participants, Mr Lala said that there were 47 million positive cases of AIDS all over the world, of which 32.4 million were males, 11.4 million were females and 3.2 million were children.

He stressed the need of awareness and educating the people through various centres about the fatal effects of this illness.

He called for strictly using fully-screened blood samples and disposable syringes.

He said that according to the World Health Organization around 2.5 million people had died of AIDS in the world during 2002.

Mr Lala said that the WHO’s studies showed that there were 80,000 cases of AIDS in Pakistan.

He said that local official figures claimed that there were only 18,861 cases in Pakistan.

A seminar regarding AIDS awareness was also held in Lahori Mohalla where several speakers including Manzoor Kohyar and Qurban Solangi warned the people about the deadly disease.