Seminar on HIV/AIDS: Effective legislation, mass awareness campaign stressed to cope with situation

PESHAWAR: Emphasising the need for effective legislation and mass campaign to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS, health experts have called for making serious efforts to remove the stigma associated with the disease.

“For years, it was the perception that the disease is transmitted through human sexual activity. It was apparently due to the lack of knowledge and limited awareness about HIV/AIDS and its transmission,” stated Khyber Medical University (KMU) Vice-chancellor Prof Dr Arshad Javaid at a one-day seminar. It was organised at the Islamia College University (ICU) on HIV/AIDS, its prevalence, reservoirs and eradication strategy in Pakistan. Besides Dr Arshad Javaid as the chief guest, ICU VC Prof Dr Habib Ahmad, Dr Mumtaz Ali Khan, a scientist at the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad, Dr Mohammad Saleem Khan, project director, HIV/AIDS Control Programme, and Dr Ghulam Rasool, dean, Khyber College of Dentistry (KCD) Peshawar, spoke about various aspects of HIV/AIDS, its transmission and prevention. Dr Arshad Javaid appreciated Prof Habib Ahmad, saying that being a non-medical institution, his institution took the lead by organising the seminar on the important issue of HIV/AIDS that has created panic all over Pakistan, particularly after its outbreak in Sindh.

“The university has made progress under Dr Habib Ahmad’s supervision in the last three years. And I am happy they arranged this awareness seminar on a very relevant issue,” Dr Arshad Javaid told the seminar. He said many people had not expected that HIV/AIDS would emerge in Pakistan one day, saying that a couple of years ago, the disease was termed a headache of the West. The vice-chancellor said the stigma was still a major obstacle to collect the exact data about HIV/AIDS victims and overcome its transmission in Pakistan.

He counted four high age groups, including people with the injectable drug (PWID), male sex workers (MSM), female sex workers (FSM) and transgenders (TGR), being victims and responsible for transmitting of the virus. According to Dr Arshad Javaid, there are multiple layers of stigmas preventing HIV/AIDS patients from approaching hospitals, clinics and seeking health services. He said that 63 per cent of the HIV/AIDS victims reportedly felt ashamed to share their disease or seeking health services, 21 per cent avoided going to local clinics, 14 per cent are denied health services and 9 per cent of them are denied the SRH services. The issue has become quite alarming in Pakistan after its recent outbreak in Taluka Ratodero area of Larkana district in Sindh province, where Pakistan reportedly registers 20,000 new HIV infections every year, and the total number of HIV patients is stated to be 0.165 million, though some experts believe the number is much higher but not reported due to a host of reasons. In terms of the high prevalence of the HIV/AIDS patients, Punjab with 75,000 patients is stated to be on top, followed by Sindh with 60,000, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 15,000 and Balochistan has only 5,000 patients.

Dr Arshad Javaid said that though no province in Pakistan is protected from HIV/AIDS, Punjab and Sindh were under significant pressure as 93 percent of HIV burden is on those provinces. He said that only 7 per cent of the people diagnosed with the disease are being treated in Pakistan. “The treatment is available but quite it’s expensive. Antiretroviral therapy or ART is the use of HIV medicines to treat HIV infection. The ART is recommended for HIV patients, it cannot cure but helps prolong healthier lives,” said Dr Arshad Javaid, a senior pulmonologist. He suggested strict legislation to discourage quackery and reuse of the injectable drugs.

He said that people diagnosed with HIV in Sindh aged between two months children to 75 years elders. Dr Arshad Javaid said 58.03 per cent of the children from two to five years were diagnosed with HIV and 143 per cent of them got infected due to use of infected drugs. The experts explained that the recent outbreak of HIV/AIDS in Sindh dispelled old disbelief that HIV/AIDS is only transmitted by sex. Prof Dr Habib Ahmad said the data collected from the ground in Sindh has proved that the disease is mostly transmitted by infected injectable drugs. He said that for quite a long time, Pakistan was in a state of denial about the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. “We were sleeping and couldn’t make a proper plan about how to counter this infectious disease. However, raising proper awareness about the sources of its transmission is the only way to avoid it,” Prof Habib Ahmad told the seminar. Dr Mumtaz Ali Khan, who had visited the affected areas in Sindh and spent time with the community, said that people were passing through a painful period of their life. He said most of the parents of children diagnosed positive for HIV were found negative, proving that the children got infected from infected drugs.

Dr Mumtaz Ali Khan said that 99 per cent of the HIV patients had a history of using injectable drugs, saying most of the people in rural Sindh were using injectable medicines. “We have seen painful scenes there. And I don’t know what will happen to those innocent children diagnosed with HIV positive from infected drugs,” Dr Mumtaz said. He termed HIV/AIDS one of the neglected diseases in Pakistan due to social taboos and misconception about its transmission. Dr Saleem Khan highlighted various issues related to high-risk groups and said there are a significant number of HIV/AIDS patients living in prisons but they are mostly neglected.