PESHAWAR, May 5: The United Nations Children’s Fund has urged media people to quote accurate data in their reports about HIV/Aids. “We accord top priority to the media in our campaign about HIV/Aids, and we expect them to write well-researched stories about the disease that kills 800,000 people a day around the globe,” said Julia Spry-Leverton, Unicef’s communication officer, at a Meet the Press programme at the Press Club here on Wednesday.

She opined that media coverage about HIV/Aids was less than what it should be.

Dr Bilal Ahmad of the provincial HIV/Aids control programme said that the government had been spending Rs60 million on a programme that aimed at changing attitude of the people towards Aids victims.

Unicef’s Dr Abdul Jamil dispelled the impression that Aids was caused only by unregulated sex, saying that use of contaminated syringes and transfusion of infected blood were some of the other factors causing Aids.

He said people should avoid going to the barber’s for having a shave or using contaminated needles for tattooing.

Moreover, many people visited quacks who used one syringe for administering injections to several patients, he said.

Unicef’s Communication Officer, Sami Malik, urged journalists to use simple words instead of resorting to using medical terminologies in their reports about Aids.

Huma Khawar, a journalist, said that the Aids victims had been discriminated against in the community. People even considered them to be sinners, she said.

She implored the media to help remove the stigma attached to the ailment.