ISLAMABAD, Dec 01 (APP):Federal Minister for National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination Abdul Qadir Patel on Thursday said that the government was making efforts to increase its capacity to test the Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection (HIV) and AIDS.
Addressing the event held in connection with World AIDS Day 2022, with the theme “Equalize”, the minister urged the media and civil society to create awareness of the prevalence of HIV and AIDS in remote and far-flung areas.
He said that as per reports, 240,000 HIV-positive patients are present in Pakistan and added the need to allocate further resources to increase the testing facilities to identify HIV patients.
He said that there is a need to initiate a national prevention revolution that included all available options to stop the transmission of HIV, including protection commodities, immediate initiation of antiretroviral therapy, and pre-exposure prophylaxis.
He said that the incumbent government was striving at both the national and provincial levels, despite competing priorities and fiscal limitations, and with the support of partners like UNAIDS, UNDP, WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, and other stakeholders to provide HIV prevention and treatment services through high impact community-based HIV prevention program.
Special Secretary Health, Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, Mirza Nasir-ud-Din Mashhood Ahmad said that specific populations and locations require additional tools such as harm reduction (needle-syringe and opioid substitution therapy programmes) for people who inject drugs.
“The government of Pakistan reaffirms its support to overcome challenges pertaining to strengthening of HIV response, but also on the road ahead to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal target of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.”
Ms Aliona Niculita, Deputy Resident Representative UNDP Pakistan, emphasized the agency’s commitment to addressing economic, social, cultural, and legal inequalities to contribute towards ending the AIDS epidemic in collaboratively working towards building resilient health systems to enable equitable and efficient access to services embedded with utmost dignity and respect for communities.
Around the globe, Pakistan under the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, in collaboration with Common Management Unit for AIDS, TB, and Malaria, UNAIDS, WHO, UNDP UNICEF, UNFPA, UNODC, APLHIV commemorated World AIDS Day 2022, under the current theme of the World AIDS Day is “Equalize”, as this slogan is a call to action to increase availability, quality of services for HIV treatment, testing, and prevention.
Equalize calls for communities to make use of and adapt the message to highlight the particular inequalities they face and to press for the actions needed to address them.
During the event, the minister also launched World AIDS Day Report, 2022.
