Andhra Pradesh

AIDS prevalence rate comes down

VIZIANAGARAM: Director-General of National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) K. Sujatha Rao has asked people’s network, ANMs, self-help groups and voluntary organisations to campaign continuously against the stigma and discriminatory attitude among people and also not to relax on the progress so far made in controlling the spread of AIDS. Expressing satisfaction with the measures the AIDS Control Society had so far taken in controlling the spread of the syndrome, Ms. Sujatha Rao told reporters here on Friday that the strategy being adopted, particularly through promotion of condoms and drug adherence, the prevalence rate, as per the 2007 figures, touched as low as 1.15 per cent. This figure was still high and suggested the AIDS Control Society staff not to sit back as in Thailand, where the afflicted rate began to increase after they stopped taking preventive measures. She said that 70 per cent of the people, fearing social stigma, were not coming forward for testing and the focus must now be on them lest they would spread the disease.

And for the same reason, the Director-General proposed link workers for identification of high-risk families in both urban and rural areas.

Stating that in Vizianagaram district, the prevalence rate dropped from 1.3 to 0.63 per cent, she said that counselling centres in PHCs for the youth in the age group of 19-22 years would be opened, as there were reports about their participation in unsafe sex.

Project Director of APSACS R.V. Chandravadan said that for the first time a short duration programme on AIDS control was being broadcast on radio every Thursday evening.

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