Daily Times

LARKANA: As many as 67 new HIV positive cases were reported at HIV/AIDS Treatment & Care Center during last three months, raising the number of registered patients to 1545 in Larkana which indeed is very alarming situation for which government will have to take serious efforts to curb it from further spreading.

Out of these 67 patients, 12 are women and 55 men. As many as 20 affected patients have expired during the same period which has not been included in the report. Out of these, 1545 registered patients, 1221 are men, 278 women, 16 children and 30 eunuchs. As many as 889 patients are under treatment at the moment, who belong to 17 districts of Sindh and Balochistan provinces. As many as 746 cases belong to Larkana alone which is occupying the highest number of such patients followed by Kambar-Shahdadkot district which has 225 patients, Shikarpur 69, Khairpur Mirs 140, Jacobabad 39, Kandhkot-Kashmore 29, Sukkur 64, Ghotki 18, Dadu 153, Jamshoro 13, Naushehro Feroze 29, Nawabshah 3, Khuzdar, Kalat, Panjgore and Hyderabad each have one patient, Jafferabad 6, Nasirabad has 3 and Karachi 3.

As many as 149 of them are also infected with Hepatitis C and 16 are suffering from Hepatitis B. Out of these 1545, 801 are between 18 to 30 years, 426 are between 31 to 40 years, 178 are between 41 to 50 years, 67 are between 51 to 60, 19 are between 61 to 70, 38 are below 18 years age group and 16 are children. Dr. Hola Ram has been appointed as the incharge of the center which is suffering very badly from acute shortage of required staff & equipment including computers as only two persons are working with one computer. He told Newsmen on Sunday that as many as five doctors and one lady doctor are urgently required to run the center properly in view of the increasing number of new poor patients that are being registered monthly. He said that the services of a lady doctor are must for counselling female patients adding that shortage of paramedics is also being faced by the patients so much so that he has no peon in his office.

He said that awareness campaign should be started throughout the province vigorously which must continue its efforts everywhere daily & regularly so that people may be able to know how HIV is infected and how to save themselves. It must be mentioned here that large number of unregistered laboratories are working in Larkana & Kambar-Shahdadkot which are randomly checked, action taken and then forgotten which also need to be kept under strict surveillance daily & regularly by the concerned Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (SBTA) officials as they are working without any services of qualified pathologists and are alleged to be main source of spreading HIV and Hepatitis through un-screened blood to needy patients who require emergency operations & so forth.