Tackling AIDS

AIDS prevention will remain impossible till moral caution associated with discourse on its victims is not relinquished

The social nature of AIDS victims has long challenged the country’s moral yoke so much so, that the contractors of the disease are often not even acknowledged as rightful claimants of state attention or even basic human sympathy. The AIDS Response Progress Report 2014, prepared by the health ministry, makes it clear that fundamental transmitters of the HIV virus are drug addicts using injections, followed by sex workers, including those from the transgender community. Much can be said about how AIDS treatment and prevention, as a subject of health policy, fell into complete disarray after the Eighteenth Amendment. But even if this gaffe of governance had not happened, even if the provinces had the skill of sorting through the bureaucracy and logistics of policy, AIDS prevention would have remained next to impossible till the moral caution associated with discourse on its victims is not relinquished.

It is impossible to ensure AIDS prevention without regulatory health measures which, in turn, cannot be administered without formally recognising that the commerce of drugs and sex is a budding part of the informal sector. However much the authorities thunder over the illegalities of such trade, the smooth thrive of these industries is a rude reality. From Lahore to Multan to Faisalabad to Peshawar to Hyderabad to Karachi. There is a limit to how much we can lie by silence. Unless the government warms up to the idea that it has been unsuccessful in rooting out these trades, AIDS prevention and treatment will remain an impossible policy target and the numbers of victims will continue to soar. The ostracised members of our discriminatory social milieu need to brought into the conversation, with the government ensuring that these individuals have steady access to information on AIDS prevention, along with the necessary equipment that can curb incidence. It would do us well to remember that the eradication of the HIV virus is not simply a domestic obligation that can be dealt with flippantly; it is a promise that Pakistan has repeatedly made to the world at UN forums.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th,  2014.

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