KARACHI: Experts at an awareness session on HIV/Aids on Wednesday said the people aged 25 years or less constituted a majority of the population which was vulnerable to the fatal illness.

`In fact, people aged 25 or less make 63 per cent of the population,` said by Dr Aftab Ahmed of the Sindh Aids Control Programme (SACP) while speaking to the audience at the seminar.

TheeventwasorganisedbythePakistan chapter of the International Union of Food Workers (IUF) at a local hotel.

The core objective of the seminar was to sensitise unions and managements to the issue of HIV/Aids and make them aware of preventive measures instead of discrimination.

Dr Ahmed said Aids was eventually declared a disease in 1981 in the United States, however, the evidences of HIV were found in the preserved plasma sam-ple collected in 1959 in Central Africa.

`Worldwide, half of the HIV affected people belong to people aged less than 25 years, and such figures were not different in Pakistan,` he said.

He said approximately 104,000 people in the country were estimated to be infected with HIV. However, on the contrary, just 14,705 cases were reported and documented.

He spoke in detail about the situation in Sindh where almost half of the cases in the country had been documented.

He said most cases in Sindh were being reported from Larl(ana and Karachi.

Sharing figures relating to the reported cases in Sindh, he said, some 10,418 cases were reported, out of which the authorities had registered 5,955 individuals.

Officials said blood transfusion and reused injections were among the chief reasons, which should be blamed for HIV.

They said disposable syringes werebanned worldwide in 1999 for the reason that it could be reused and it was replaced with the auto-disposable syringes, which could not be used more than once.

However, lamented the experts, disposable syringes were still being used in even prominent and expensive hospitals in the country with impunity.

`They are using disposable syringes just because they are cheaper,` said Dr Ahmed.

Speaking over the recent HIV scare in the Chandka Medical College Hospital, Larkana, which infected dozens of people with HIV because of infected dialysis machines and poor adherence to standard operating procedures, the speakers said it was not first of its kind.

`In fact,` said a speaker, it was June 2003 when the first ever such outbreak of HIV infection involving injecting drug users (IDUs) was reported in Larkana, in which initially 19 IDUs were reported and confirmed as HIV positive.

From June 1 to May 31, 2004, a total of141 IDUs tested positive against a total number of 3,302 tests performed on the groups in Larkana and Karachi. Some 47 out of 893 people screened were found HIV positive in Larkana while in Karachi some 94 out of more than 2,000 people screened were found carrying the lethal infection.

Mohammed Haroon, a motivational trainer, said diseases could be fought against with positivity and awareness.

At the end, participants in the seminar demanded implementation on the legislation relating to prevention of HIV/ Aids. They pledged to spread the l
More than 50 participants from Pakistan Food Workers Federation, Sindh Sugar Mills Workers Federation; Hotels, Restaurants, Clubs, Catering and Allied Workers Federation, All Sindh Agriculture Research Regional Employees Union, and Sindh Haryani Union attended the event.