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WEEKLY
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| Specialists dissect National HIV Testing Policy |
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Saturday, November 07, 2009
Shahina Maqbool
Islamabad
Leading pathologists, microbiologists, haematologists, blood bank experts, clinicians, immunologists and other specialists converged here on Friday to share their views, reservations and expert comments on the proposed National HIV Testing Policy.
The occasion was a day-long consensus meeting hosted by the National AIDS Control Programme as part of the National Congress of the Pakistan Association of Pathologists. The meeting was called in recognition of the need for a national consensus on various aspects of HIV and AIDS testing, as well as quality assurance in HIV testing laboratories.
Testing for HIV infection has been continuing in Pakistan ever since the first AIDS case was reported in January 1987. However, screening and testing for HIV infection has always followed the criteria and guidelines laid down in international documents prepared by international organisations and agencies; these policies do not necessarily correspond to local requirements of the situation in Pakistan.
To ensure that the policy has the input of all the concerned stakeholders, NACP invited a large number of specialists to contribute to the fine-tuning of a policy relating to a very important aspect of health in Pakistan.
The participants were told that Pakistan has transitioned from a country with low prevalence of HIV and AIDS to one with a concentrated epidemic among high-risk groups. A National Testing Policy is now the need of the hour to prevent this epidemic from spreading into the general population.
The meeting was chaired by eminent haematologist and former national coordinator of NACP General (r) Masood Anwar. Dr. Hasan Abbas, the national manager of NACP, presented an overview of HIV and AIDS in Pakistan while Professor Dr Khurshid Ahmad spoke at length about the National HIV Testing Policy, the role of the National HIV and AIDS Referral Laboratory at NACP and quality assurance for HIV Testing.
Dr Osman Yusuf, co-founder of NACP in 1988, acted as the coordinator of the meeting, which featured a lively discussion with input from all members. The session concluded with a decision to follow-up on this most important topic with further discussions and meetings.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
