LAHORE - Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid has called for enhanced awareness among youth on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodefi-ciency Syndrome (AIDS) stigma reduc-tion and its modes of transmission at the World AIDS Day seminar at a local hotel here on Tuesday. Present on the occasion were Secretary Primary and Secondary Healthcare Depart-ment Captain (retired), Usman Younis, UN-AIDS Country Director for Pakistan & Af-ghanistan Dr Maria Elena Fillia Borromeo, Director General Health Services Punjab Dr Haroon Jehangir, Vice-Chancellor of Pun-jab’s leading universities, Project Director Punjab AIDS Control Programme Dr Munir Ahmed, Managers of all Vertical Programs, representatives of WHO and UNICEF. Punjab Health Minister said that raising awareness among university students about communicable diseases especially HIV/AIDS was of paramount importance as the disease was spreading at a fast pace. She emphasized that removing stigma at-tached with HIV/AIDS must be the prime focus of the campaign. She said, “I am grateful to the VCs for com-ing forward for a great cause. The role of academia is important in raising awareness among youth on prevention and control of communicable diseases. We must discourage the trend of using in-jections for treatment. Injection must be used only when it becomes extremely nec-essary. Use of infected syringes, surgical/piercing instruments and unsafe blood transfusion are major causes of HIV spread in Punjab.