Daily Times

PESHAWAR: It is difficult for Fatima Bibi to reach the Peshawar Family Health Care Centre for the treatment of HIV from Kurram Agency and to cover a distance of more than 200 kilometres.

Fatima Bibi, hails from Parachinar, the capital of Kurram Agency, one of the seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Though, she lives in a rented home with her five siblings after her husband died of HIV some two years before.

“It is difficult for me to cover a long distance and travel in a public transport from Parachinar to reach the provincial metropolitan city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the treatment of HIV/Aids”, Fatima added.

However, there is no any HIV/Aids centre across the tribal areas where patients are suffering from HIV/Aids.

All the patients of HIV/Aids were getting their treatment from two centres established in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: one is in Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar and the other is in Kohat District Headquarter Hospital.

According to the data of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Aids Control Programme, a total of 485 HIV cases from across FATA have been registered till November 2016.

In these cases 33 HIV cases were from Bajaur Agency, 87 were from Khyber Agency, 98 cases were from Kurram Agency, Momand Agency 34 cases, Orakzai Agency 28 cases, South Waziristan 72 and North Waziristan 133 HIV cases.

According to Khwando Kor Organisation, a non-profit organisation working on HIV, it was said that overall 55 migrants from FATA who were deported from Gulf countries were infected of HIV positive and were registered with them.

Subhan Ali Programme Manager, Khwando Kor (K.K), said that they had established two centres of Community & Home based Care Centre (CHBC) in Hayatabad and Kohat where they were providing treatment to HIV patients.

He further said that the organisation was working with the Provincial Aids Control Programme under the umbrella of the National Aids Control Programme and was providing treatment including medicines and food items to the affected HIV patients. He further said that around 55 patients of HIV were registered with them who belonged to FATA and were deported from the Gulf countries to Pakistan, adding that 15 patients of HIV migrants were from Mohmand and Bajaur Agencies.

Subhan said they were providing food packages to the affected community for three months while the treatment and medicines were also provided to them including kids school fees, test, x-ray etc.

He informed that the affected families were given a house rent as well amounting to Rs 12, 000.

He maintained that his organisation awarded 20 male and female HIV/Aids patients entrepreneurship opportunities and were giving them assistance of Rs12000.

The Association for Community Development (ACD), Manager Asif Ali, said that their organisation was working in Malakand Division on HIV migrants.

He added that they had so far collected the data of migrants in 2016 as according to their data around 34 HIV migrant cases were reported from Swat, 25 cases were from Bajour Agency, 18 cases were from Buner, 17 cases of HIV were from Malakand, 54 cases were from Dir-Lower, Dir Upper 21, Shangla 6, and Chitral.

According to the World Health Organization report around 35 million people were affected with HIV while in Pakistan around 97,400 cases were reported each year in the country.

According to the data of National Aids Control Programme around 27.2 % HIV cases from injecting drug users, 7.2 % from trans genders while 1.6 from male and female sex workers in the country were commonly prevalent.

The report said that the HIV prevalence among the general population in Pakistan was still below 0.1 % while according to the latest national HIV estimates there are approximately 97,400 cases of HIV /Aids in Pakistan while the HIV positive people registered for treatment and care at the National Aids Control Programme are about 14,500 cases coming from across the country which reflected that some patients hid their disease because of social taboos and stigma.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa around 2,584 cases of HIV positive were registered with the Provincial Aids Control Programme in which around 1450 people were under treatment.

The Health Department KP is providing free medicines to HIV patients at the HMC, Family Care Centre (FCC) as well as Kohat and the FCC centre was providing them free testing of the HIV facility as well.

The department has allocated Rs.500 million in the last provincial ADP for the control of HIV, Hepatitis, and Thalassemia with the expansion of these services to seven divisions of KP.

Dr. Ayub Rose, Project Director of the Provincial Aids Control Programme said that the provincial government was providing free health facilities to HIV patients across the province including patients from FATA and Afghanistan.

He further said that already the government had announced Rs 500 million for the HIV programme for establishing seven new centres for HIV patients.

He added that the selection and recruitment processes of the centre were finalised and soon the centre would start working in the concerned district.