LARKANA: A joint meeting of the Sindh AIDS Control Programme and district AIDS task force held here on Monday expressed concern over an alarming rise in the number of AIDS cases in Larkana and noted that illegal blood banks might be behind the spread of the incurable disease.

The meeting chaired by Larkana Deputy Commissioner Kashif Ali Tipu urged all stakeholders to play their role in creating awareness about the disease and decided to continue an ongoing crackdown against quacks and illegal blood banks and laboratories in the district.

The meeting participants were informed that 150 quacks` clinics had been sealed so far while the quacks managed to escape. The DC asked police to arrest all the absconders whohad escaped police action and directed assistant commissioners and mukhtiarkars concerned to register FIRs against the absconding medical practitioners.

He asked Sindh AIDS Control Programme to provide complete data of patients suffering from the disease so that their families could be sensitized to the seriousness of the illness and the special patient care.

He asked all non-governmental organisations to seek permission for work from the deputy commissioner`s office within a week, or face action. The meeting ordered to seal a private blood bank (Bukhari Blood Bank) which was surprisingly allowed to operate in the presence of medical superintendent of the Chandka Medical College Hospital.

The meeting also decided to launch a blood donating society in Larkana.

Later, Dr Yunis Chachar, director of AIDS Control Programme told journalists at the press club that final toucheswere being given to a draft bill to be tabled in Sindh Assembly soon, which would make it mandatory for the wouldbe husband and wife to have HIV/AIDS tests prior to marriage.

The law could save future generations from this disease, he said, adding that currently the number of registered HIV/ AIDS cases in Sindh was 10,891 and of them 239 were that of AIDS while 10,652 of HIV. In Larkana alone, the number of HIV/AIDS patients was 1,440, he said.

He attributed the rise in number of HIV/AIDS cases in Larkana to unsafe business of blood through illegal blood banks where AIDS infected patients were perhaps donors. Seven more treatment centers would soon be established after Karachi and Larkana in Sukkur and other districts, he said.

He said the tests for HIV/AIDS were conducted at a brothel in Larkana but surprisingly none of the sex workers was found infected with the disease.