HIV/AIDS: Breaking the backbone of development in Pakistan

[Guest guest]

HIV/AIDS: Breaking the backbone of development in Pakistan

By Muhammad Habib Sultan

Health is intrinsically linked to community and social issues such as poverty,

illiteracy and value system of a particular society. Health and health seeking

behavior are culturally constructed and socially determined phenomena.

AIDS — a fatal disease — during recent years, has played havoc with the lives of

human beings particularly in India and African countries. AIDS is a retrovirus,

known as the Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) that breaks down the body's

immune system leaving the victim vulnerable to the rest of the life, threatening

with opportunistic infections, neurological disorders or unusual

malignancies. Among the special features of HIV infections are that once

infected, it is probable that a person will be infected for the whole life.

Strictly speaking, the term AIDS refers to the last stage of HIV infection (NIH

1999). Patients with HIV may live a healthy life even for several years. Due to

this delay in appearance of the symptoms of disease, infected person may pass

the virus to several others being unaware of it, as he feels himself normal. So

far neither effective treatment is available nor a vaccine breakthrough has been

possible.

South Asia is in severe potential danger of HIV/AIDS epidemic as many high-risk

groups are contributing in the spread of the disease rapidly. Pakistan, in

above-mentioned AIDS scenario needs to learn from the mistakes of other

countries and face the challenge bravely through immediate and effective

response.

Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs), Injected drug users (IDUS), truck drivers, jail

inmates, hostelized boys, girls and eunuchs are among high-risk groups in

Pakistan who may be the potential source of spreading HIV/AIDS with large

acceleration.

As far as the figures are concerned, AIDS is very much under reported in

Pakistan as it has at least 80,000 AIDS patients; more than 50 times the 1,700

officially confirmed cases. There are about three million Pakistanis working

abroad, and first infection came from them, to their families and their

children. While sex workers operate illegally without any precaution measures

are also source of spreading AIDS. More than 70% of the truckers in Pakistan

admitted having commercial sex but only 5% said that they use condoms. The

number of drug dependents in Pakistan is currently estimated to be three million

persons, out of whom an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 inject drugs and according

to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, unsafe injections account for 62%

of Hepatitis B, 84% of Hepatitis C, and 3% of new HIV cases (UNAIDS & WHO 1999).

Young, healthy, and energetic people contribute significantly to the development

of a society/country. Health and sickness are many more than personal or

psychological issues. Social factors profoundly affect not only our life

expectancy but also our chances of becoming ill; the kind of diseases we are

likely to get. Similarly the social and medical response to illness/disease and

its consequences also vary from society to society and even community to

community. For example in Pakistan, people are not as much aware about HIV/AIDS

as in Western societies.

There is no doubt that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has a devastating effect on the

economies of the most severely affected nations. Costs are not only financial

but also fundamentally social and psychological in nature. There is no easily

conceivable way of measuring all these costs but it is possible to explore the

ways in which the disease affects different economic sectors. In all sectors,

HIV/AIDS increases absenteeism, reduces productivity, imposes additional costs

in training and hiring new recruits, increases spending on health care,

retirement and death benefits. By affecting the most economically active age

groups (25-45 years), HIV/AIDS affects the very people who are needed to advance

national socioeconomic development.

The systematic impact of the epidemic on poverty and rural development has an

aggregate effect, and is creating a myriad of effects at the household level.

Impact studies of HIV/AIDS on poverty and income distribution describe how

households, which lose primary income earners to HIV/AIDS, cope by drawing on

savings and selling assets to pay the costs of care and funerals and to meet

daily needs.

The only way to cope with the problem is to take the matter seriously and to

fight against the disease with mutual cooperation of all three sectors;

government, people and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-3-2004_pg6_11