PESHAWAR, Dec 1: Acting South African High Commissioner M. M. Mesatywa has urged the government to take the issue of HIV/Aids seriously to avert a South Africa like situation. “The situation in South Africa is bad because the pandemic has infected 30 per cent of its population,” he said while addressing a “World Aids Day” seminar at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday. The event was organised jointly by the UNAIDS, the press club and the provincial health department.

“So far, a staggering amount of $22 billion has been spent on fighting the disease around the world since 1980 but the number of patients is still on rise,” he said adding that HIV/Aids was not only a threat to public health but also to economic development of a country.

Poverty and lack of awareness coupled with the government’s failure to acknowledge it as a serious problem were main reason behind the rise in number of patients around the world, he added.

UNAIDS’ representative Dr Mohammad Saleem painted a gloomy picture by saying that at present 41.30 million people, including 17.5 million women and 2.3 million children, were infected by the disease all over the world.

“About 1400 persons are admitted to the AIDS club every day, of whom 95 per cent happen to be poor”, he said, adding that South Asian countries had 8.5 million patients, including 2 million women and 1.1 million men and children.

He said Pakistan had so far recorded 3070 cases. These were reported cases and actual number could be even bigger because there was no system to collect full data in the country, he added.

Citing the WHO’s estimates, he said if the whole population was screened for the Aids, the number of its patients would be somewhere between 70,000 and 1,40,000.

Manager of the NWFP Aids Control Programme, Dr Mohammad Zafar, said that the province had recorded 466 HIV/Aids cases so far.

“We are sitting on a volcano which can blow up anytime. There is a need to create awareness of causative agents of the disease,” he said, adding that they had been organising workshops and seminars for media and religious scholars to enhance the level of awareness.

NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan said that the government was committed to check spread of the disease. “We can check its spread by ensuring supply of clean drinking water and safe blood transfusion”, he added. He said that hepatitis-B had also been killing people throughout the province and mode of its transmission was same as that of HIV/Aids.

He asked people not to hate Aids-infected patients and be sympathetic towards them in their hard times.

Earlier, a seminar was held in the Khyber Medical College in connection with the World Aids Day which was addressed by the health minister, principal KMC Prof Dr Omer Ali Khan, Dr Mohammad Zafar, Dr Mohammad Saleem. They urged the people to practice teachings of Islam in letter and spirit to be safe from Aids.