Punjab provincial government has decided to implement a comprehensive plan for providing better healthcare facilities to the people of the province and health department would provide district governments the comprehensive guidelines/help, to control and prevent HIV/AIDS at the district level.
Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed expressed these views while addressing second Pakistan Harm Reduction Conference (PHRC) here on Friday. Dr Asma Bokhari, Dr Aldo Landi of UNAIDS, Dr Anwar Hafeez Khan, Dr Tariq Zafar and Dr Khalid Mughal were also present on the occasion.
However, he appealed to the Ulemas to come forward and help the government to create awareness among general public against this menace. He said that we could save our young generation from this curse by acting upon our social and religious values and Ulema might brief the people regarding the hazardous aspects of this disease in their khutbas/speeches as well as during individual communication. "It was the common responsibility of teachers, parents, public opinion leaders and the Ulema to play their effective role in this social service and we would involve other departments like education, police, NGO's, civil society and public opinion leaders to achieve the targets," he added.
According to him, HIVAIDS control and its cure has become a great dilemma for both the developed and under developed countries and were firstly detected in developed countries of the world. This fatal disease has affected more than 40.3 million people all over the world out of which more than 34.7 million were adults, 17 million women, while 1.5 million were children under 15 years of age.
The minister said that enhanced HIV/AIDS control programme had been initiated at federal and provincial level for the period of five years (2002-2007) with a cost of Rs 2,858.422 million. He said that behaviour change of high-risk population and general public along with the provision of awareness about preventive measures against HIV/AIDS was the main strategies of this programme. "This is the first time that the government has promoted the involvement of NGOs and the private sector to such a great extant that majority of community based interventions are being implemented through them. Services for aforementioned high risk groups were initially being provided in six larger cities of the Punjab namely Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Sargodha and Sialkot and in near future the services would expand to other districts," he added.
According to him, for the general population, the programme envisages the implementation of activities designed in light of a specific behaviour change and communication strategy involving electronic media, print media, capacity building workshops through inter-personal communication and displaying billboard at identified spots. Further, the programme would also contribute towards improvement in blood safety by expanding services for screening of blood and blood products.
Diagnostic kits for testing HIV and Hepatitis-B have been provided to 119 blood banks and 12 HIV surveillance centres in the province through Punjab AIDS Control Programme. Quality assurance system would also be developed at provincial level. In order to achieve this objective, provincial Blood Transfusion Authority (BTA) has already been established which will envisage monitoring of blood banks in public and private sectors, he maintained.
"Punjab AIDS Control Programme had established a centre of excellence by the name of Special Clinic at out-patients department, Mayo Hospital Lahore where comprehensive management including provision of specific and symptomatic treatment for HIV/AIDS and counselling services will be provided to people living with HIV/AIDS," he concluded.