HYDERABAD: With Andhra Pradesh facing a generalised epidemic of HIV/AIDS, the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, will kick off on Friday a month-long awareness campaign, AASHA, to create "100 per cent awareness" on the disease and strengthen service delivery.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, the Principal Secretary, Health, I.V. Subba Rao, and the Director, Andhra Pradesh State AIDS Control Society, K. Damayanthi, said that the State today accounted for an estimated 10 per cent of the total 51-lakh HIV/AIDS persons in the country. Prakasam district recorded a staggering urban prevalence of four per cent. It ranged from 3 to 3.5 per cent in Guntur, Karimnagar and East Godavari.

They said that the State's prevalence rates of 2 per cent among ante-natal attendees and 16.4 per cent among STD clinic attendees clearly indicated that HIV had moved beyond the high risk groups to the general population.

AASHA (AIDS Awareness and Sustained Holistic Awareness) campaign, being undertaken in a mission mode all over the State, seeks to make HIV/AIDS a people-centred issue.

New centres

The Government would set up 100 Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centres (VCTCs), 56 centres for Prevention of parent to Child Transmission (PPTCT), 12 orphanages, one each in the high- prevalence districts, provide additional quantity of drugs and an AASHA centre in every village having HIV/AIDS persons.

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