Over 3000 people test positive for HIV in Sindh in 11 months
Almost 3515 people have tested positive for HIV in Sindh during the last eleven months of the ongoing year, said Additional Director Communicable Disease Control (CDC) Sindh, Dr Irshad Kazmi.
Kazmi said that more than one million people were screened to find out their HIV status out of which 3,515 new cases were registered, up by 0.343 percent.
Dr. Irshad Kazmi informed that almost 19,766 HIV-infected people from across Sindh are registered with CDC-HIV.
According to an estimate of the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of HIV positive cases in Pakistan is 210,000, of which 50% are in Punjab and 43% are in Sindh.
“Mostly people do not know about the status of HIV or if they do know they consider it a stigma and are not ready to come forward because of the fear,” Kazmi said.
Informing about the HIV screening centres in Sindh, AD CDC said that the Sindh has total of seventeen HIV-screening centres under public-private partnership.
Earlier, it was revealed that, almost 519 people have tested positive for HIV in Islamabad during the last 10 months of the ongoing year and their alarming majority comprises young men in the age group of 18 to 25 years being categorized as men having sex with men (MSM) in addition to transgenders.
According to officials, HIV has been spreading rapidly among “young men in the age group of 18-25 years”, who were also involved in “unsafe sexual practices”.
World AIDS day:
World AIDS Day, designated on 1 December every year since 1988 is an international day dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection and mourning those who have died of the disease.
This year theme of the day in Pakistan is “Putting Ourselves to the Test: Achieving Equity to End HIV.”
HIV continues to be a major global public health concern, having affected more than a million people worldwide. World AIDS Day is an opportunity for public and private partners to spread awareness about the status of the plague and support progress in HIV/AIDS preclusion, treatment and care across the globe.
