Seminar: ‘More than 600 AIDS patients in south Punjab’

The speakers says that most of the male patients are those who had gone abroad to work.

DERA GHAZI KHAN:

More than 600 people across the South Punjab have AIDS of whom 300 are based in Dera Ghazi Khan division, a seminar was told on Saturday. They include 97 women and 27 children. This was stated by the AIDS Control Programme Incharge Dr Mohammad Akbar Siddiqui at the seminar at the district hospital.

Dr Haroon Bilal, who also spoke, said that an AIDS Control Centre was established in the district to help control the disease but no funds had been provided. The speakers said that most of the male patients were those who had gone abroad to work. Upon their return, they said, they had not practised safe sex and passed on the disease to their partners and as a result their children. They said the doctors were treating the patients, whose names are kept secret to protect their privacy.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2012.