ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: Official figures of reported HIV/AIDS cases in Pakistan are as low as 3,000, but World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS put the conservative estimates between 80,000 and 100,000.
Speaking at a workshop on "HIV and Drugs" held here on Wednesday, UNAIDS programme representative Dr Aldo Landi said Pakistan did not have a low prevalence rate when it came to HIV/AIDS cases.
British Council has organized the workshop to create awareness of HIV/AIDS and drugs issues among children belonging to 15-18 age group. Dr Landi said it would be a lost battle against HIV/AIDS if cases went unreported and the social stigma attached to the infected persons was not addressed.
Poverty, ignorance, gender discrimination and several other reasons are contributing factors to spread of HIV/AIDS in Pakistan, he added. The UNAIDS programme representative said poverty and denial of education and attention compelled women to become sex workers. These women want to have families too but because they are poor and have mouths to feed they take up this line of work, he added.
Dr Landi said these factors put Pakistan at risk. He said although HIV percentage was low (one per cent) among injecting drug users, there was evidence that new patterns of drug use and shifts to injecting in particular was an important factor contributing to rapid increases of HIV infection among drug users.
Dr Landi said HIV symptoms appeared after 2-3 months before tests produced positive results. AIDS took many years before its symptoms started to show, he added. Discovered in the 80s in Africa and still incurable though preventable, the UNAIDS representative said nearly 42 million people in the world were living with HIV/AIDS, while deaths due to the disease were over 3.1 million.
British Council Pakistan Director Dr Tom Craig-Cameron, in his speech, said it was important to hold dialogue between schoolchildren in Pakistan and the UK for peace, cultural understanding and respect.
The British Council through its Montage programme, an educational and knowledge based initiative, involves schoolchildren and their teachers in gaining access to information, he said.
The director said the British Council was encouraging joint projects between students in Pakistan and the UK. One such project involved students of both the countries in writing an online youth magazine focusing on issue of the younger generation such as culture, music, etc., he added.
At the workshop, the British Council also launched its "Young Ambassadors" programme aimed at establishing a network of 15-18 years old students to engage them actively in British Council activities.