KARACHI - Sindh AIDS Control Program Manager Dr Younis Chachar on Monday called for coordinated efforts from all stakeholders of society to control HIV/AIDS in Pakistan.
He said this while speaking to media persons during an awareness walk organised by Sindh AIDS Control Program (SACP) in connection of World AIDS Day at Sea View.
The walk was led by Dr Younis Chachar and other officials while representatives of civil society & NGO, students, business community and HIV/AIDS patients also participated in the walk.
Dr Chachar informed that presently about 130,000 HIV/AIDS infected people are living in Pakistan out of them 56,000 live in Sindh province.
He said the SACP has registered 12,979 cases across the province since 1995 out of them 12,740 were found HIV positive and 239 were AIDS patients. He further informed that treatment of over 7,000 registered HIV/AIDS patients was under way in the province. He said currently there are two HIV/AIDS Centers in Sindh province: one in Civil Hospital Karachi and other in Civil Hospital Larkana.
He said more HIV Treatment Centers are also being established in Jinnah Postulate Medical Centre, Sindh Government Lyari General Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH). He explained that major high risk groups of HIV/AIDS prevalence are include long distance truck drivers, female sex workers, transgender sex workers, men having sex with men (MSMs), injecting drug users (IDUs), jail inmates, children born to infected parent, street children and victims of unsafe medical procedures.
Dr Younis Chachar said awareness campaigns was being conducted throughout the Sindh province thorough religious leaders, civil society, media and other stockholders to control the prevalence HIV/AIDs.
The World AIDS Day was observed on December 1st ever year in worldwide with aim to create awareness among masses to adopt safety measures from falling prey to it.
