Syringes reuse ban termed imperative for HIV/AIDS control

Walk held to mark World AIDS Day themed on engaging communities in disease control

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to prepare national action plan to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.

Ministry for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination has prepared a national action plan to control the spread of AIDS by strictly stopping reuse of syringes and transfusion of blood without screening.

“The ministry has devised the national AIDS control programme in consultation with the provinces,” Special Assistant to PM on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr Zafar Mirza said.

Ministry of National Health Services has already formed a task force on injection safety usage, Mirza said addressing the participants of AIDS awareness walk organised by World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday.

The theme of this year’s AIDS day is Communities Make the Difference, which essentially means that it is through communities that the menace of HIV/AIDS can be eradicated.

Mirza said that the government is fully committed to addressing the disease and in this regard several steps have been taken including complete ban on reuse of syringes.

He said that efforts are being made to stop spread of the disease through blood transfusion which was only possible by implementing the policy of blood screening. He said that the government has prepared strategy to avoid medical complications from use of injections and added that a task force on Injection Safety has been working effectively on the project.

Mirza added the task force in coordination with Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) will introduce code of ethics for safe injection.

Regarding the Larkana tragedy in which over 1,200 people contracted AIDS, he reminded that it happened due to reuse of syringes.

Dr Mirza said that only auto-destruct syringes will be used in the country from the next year. Government has started working on these syringes with an objective to completely eradicate the culture of reuse of present ordinary syringes.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2019.