LAHORE, July 16: The Punjab government will provide financial support to NGOs for launching an awareness campaign against HIV\AIDS. Health Minister Chaudhry Iqbal said this while presiding over a meeting of the provincial steering committee on enhanced HIV/AIDS control programme here on Monday.

He said the health department had been providing guidelines to district governments to control the disease. He said awareness campaigns in this regard had been launched on media and capacity building workshops through inter-personal communication also initiated.

The minister said the programme would also contribute to improvement in blood safety by expanding services for screening of blood products. Diagnostic kits for testing HIV and Hepatitis-B/C had been provided to 120 blood banks and 12 HIV surveillance centres in the province through Punjab AIDS control programme. —Staff Reporter