Pakistan: Gulf immigrants most infected with HIV/AIDS

[Guest guest]

Gulf immigrants most infected with HIV/AIDS

By Shahid Husain

KARACHI: Pakistani immigrants returning from Gulf countries have been

identified as the single largest group in the country infected with

HIV/AIDS, according to Dr Sharaf Ali Shah, programme manager of the

Enhanced Sindh AIDS Control Programme, and Dr Abdul Mujeeb, in charge

of the Blood Bank and AIDS Surveillance Centre, Jinnah Postgraduate

Medical Center.

Briefing journalists here on Saturday on the eve of the World's AIDS

Day (Dec 1), Dr Mujeeb said HIV/AIDS destroys the immune system of a

person and he or she easily becomes a prey of tuberculosis,

pneumonia, diarrhoea and other diseases. He said the HIV/AIDS virus

cannot be detected until the twelve-week mark and anti-retroviral

therapy can then be used to boost a person's defence mechanism. He

said the United Nations Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria had

provided $11 million to Pakistan to fight the menace.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Sharaf Ali Shah said the number of

people living with HIV/AIDS across the world was over 40 million

whereas the number of newly infected persons was five million,

including 700,000 children. He said as many as three million people

world wide died of HIV/AIDS in 2003. Referring to the regional

scenario, he said the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Asia-

Pacific was 7.4 million whereas the number of newly infected persons

in this region was one million. He said about 500,000 people died of

HIV/AIDS in Asia-Pacific in 2003. He said there were 4.5 million

people suffering from HIV/AIDS in India.

Comparatively, 2,020 cases of HIV/AIDS have been confirmed in

Pakistan. A break-up shows that there were 378 cases of HIV/AIDS in

federal centres, 441 in Punjab, 582 in Sindh, 405 in North West

Frontier Province (NWFP), 192 in Balochistan and 22 in Azad Jammu &

Kashmir. He said out of the total cases in Pakistan, 1,785 are HIV

positive and 235 have AIDS.

He said in Sindh, between 1986 until now, as many as 659 cases of HIV

were reported. Among them 88.8 percent were males and 11.2 percent

females. In 2003 alone, 86 cases of HIV were reported in Sindh out of

which 96.5 percent were males and 3.5 percent females, he added. He

said the mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS in the year was sexual (64

cases), and injecting drug users (22 cases). He said screening done

among jail inmates during June-December 2003 showed that out of tests

of 5,590 prisoners, 23 were reported with HIV positive.

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