Experts in an orientation workshop for print and electronic media personnel have asked the media persons to follow ethical codes while reporting stories relating to people living with HIV/Aids to save them from being stigmatised.
They said that confidentiality and informed consent should be at the centre stage, while reporting sensitive public health issues, such as HIV/Aids.
Addressing the workshop, Qamrul Islam Siddiqui of the National Aids Control Programme said that journalists were required to create an environment through their stories and articles, where the HIV/Aids people could live with honour and respect.
He said there were numerous stances in which the society looked the Aids patients down upon. "Being a sex-born ailment, the people regarded Aids patients as sinners despite the fact that there were other mode of transmission of the disease also," Siddiqui added.
He said Pakistan had so far recorded 3,073 patients, including 2,741 HIV and 332 Aids. Of these, 72 per cent were deportees, he said, and urged for screened blood transfusion to put brakes on the pandemic.
Journalist Huma Khawar was of the view that non-existence of an appropriate language was main hindrance in the way of correct reporting on HIV/Aids issues. "Media-people should be clear-minded about the issues on which they are writing so they could generate motivation rather than hopelessness", she said.
Encouragement of HIV/Aids coverage with due support to the patients could break the silence that had marred the highlighting of the disease so far, she added.
She said the people living with HIV/Aids could now live normal lives with the launching of the anti-retroviral therapy centres in the country. The disease, she said had killed 2.5 million people last year and was spreading with an alarming pace.
NWFP Aids Control Programme Manager Dr Mohammad Zaffar said the people should insist on the use of sterilised syringes while getting injectable drugs. Avoidance of unsafe sex acts, use of unsterilised syringes and transfusion of unscreened bloods and its products were the measures that ensured protection from the Aids that had infected about 460 patients, he added.
NWFP Aids Control Programme Deputy Manager Dr Nasreen Akbar Khan said there was neither any vaccine nor any treatment for Aids, but was still preventable through positive attitude towards the infected people.
She said that intravenous drug users, long-distance truckers, sex workers and prisoners were at the risk of getting Aids, adding there was ratio of 7:1 (men:women) among the infected people, but women required more support.
NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan on the occasion urged the journalist to refrain from sensationalism while reporting Aids-related issues and file positive and informative stories. "It's not merely the responsibility of the government to raise the level of the peoples' awareness regarding public health issues but everyone living in the society has to pay his/her part", he said.
He said he had already approached to the NACP to include hepatitis in the Aids programme, because both the diseases had similar mode of transmission.
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