MANY refugees workers are scattered all over Pakistan's cities, far away from home and families, makes them still more vulnerable. There are around 500,000 drug addicts in Pakistan, of whom around 60,000 inject drugs, according to official figures.
Afghanistan produces an estimated 90 percent of the world's heroin, about a third of which is believed to reach the rest of the world via Pakistan. Over the last two years, there has been an increase in heroin smuggling and production along the porous Pakistan-Afghan border.
The risk that Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) run in relation to contracting the HI virus has also grown over the years. The addicts are switching from smoking or inhaling drugs to injecting them. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) had warned this could lead to an increase in HIV, since needle sharing and use of non-sterile equipment was common.
In 2005, The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) found an outbreak of HIV among injecting drug users in Larkana, in Sindh province, where, out of 170 people tested, more than 20 were found to be HIV positive.
In Karachi, a survey showed that Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) among high-risk groups found that more than one in five injecting drug users was infected with HIV.
Pakistan's National AIDS Programme states: "Knowledge of HIV among injectors and sex workers is extremely low. In Karachi, Pakistan's main trading city, more than one quarter of these groups surveyed had never heard of AIDS and many did not know that using non-sterile injecting equipment could result in infecting them with HIV."
Pakistan is currently classified by the WHO/UNAIDS as a high-risk country for the spread of HIV infection. The rapid rise in infection among injecting drug users has led to a sharp increase in the number of infected people in the country, and according to UNAIDS estimates, some 70,000 to 80,000 persons, or 0.1 percent of the adult population in Pakistan, are currently infected with HIV.
Dr Asma Bukhari, Programme Manager, National AIDS Control Programme said, "It has to be realised that HIV/AIDS is not merely a health issue but also a major developmental matter".
Surge in the disease prevalence was also attributed to frequent migration from within and outside the country and also to growing pressures on available infrastructure in the urban sectors, failing to meet social, economic and health care needs of the resource-less segments of the society.
The drug culture in the country, with rampant tendency of intravenous drug addiction and the presence of professional blood donors - who mainly happen to be addicts administering illicit drugs through shared syringes - hence at high risk to contract HIV and/or any other blood borne infection.
These individuals, leading normal family lives expose their spouses to high risk. A human rights watchdog, Global Foundation reported the increase in HIV/Aids and hepatitis in prisoners at the Adiyala Jail.
The Foundation researched study revealed that in Adiyala Jail three women prisoners were infected with HIV/Aids and seven other with hepatitis but ironically all these have been kept along with other prisoners in combined living rooms.
He said there was no proper system of check on health of the prisoners and doctors only visit the jail hospital to register attendance.
The hospital is also responsible to spread the HIV. A patient claims that he got HIV infection through blood transfusion. Means, without screening, the infected blood transfer to the patient.
More than 42 million people around the world are currently infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). New HIV infections have levelled off or even declined in most developed countries, but the virus is spreading rapidly through much of the developing world.
Scientists have identified three ways that HIV infections spread: sexual intercourse with an infected person, contact with contaminated blood, and transmission from an infected mother to her child before or during birth or through breastfeeding.
HIV/AIDS, has fast shifted from a low prevalence stage to concentrated epidemic phase in the country. The adequately timed interventions are needed to combat poverty aggravation and counter growing public vulnerability to the deadly and highly contagious disease.
Necessary measures should be adopted, in almost all major centers to provide necessary support and assistance to high risk groups, including women and children.
Health-care professionals focus on three areas of therapy for people living with HIV infection or AIDS: anti-retroviral therapy using drugs that suppress HIV replication; medications and other treatments that fight the opportunistic infections and cancers that commonly accompany HIV infection; and support mechanisms that help people deal with the emotional repercussions as well as the practical considerations of living with a disabling, potentially fatal disease.
These steps are to include procurement of Anti- Retro Viral (ARV) Drugs, besides providing diagnostic facilities and relevant medical assistance at identified institutions in both public and private sectors.
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