Walk held to create awareness about HIV/AIDS

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Health and Education Development Society (SHEDS) arranged walk here on Thursday in connection with World Aids day.

The walk led by Programme Coordinator SHEDS Dr. Zahid Sadder started from Hyderabad Gymkhana, which after marching through different routes culminated at Hyderabad Press Club.

The participants included Dr.Ramesh Kumar Dermatologist Mohammadi Medical College, EDO, Community Development Department (CDD), Dr.Qurban Ali Memon, programme Officer Youth Development Forum Ainy Iffat, Dr.Rafique Qureshi and many others. Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Zahid Sadder called upon the NGOs working in health sector to extend their full cooperation to the Government in controlling the increasing rate of HIV/ AIDS cases.

He emphasized the need for creating mass awareness on a large scale to motivate the people to adopt preventive measures to save themselves from this deadly disease. Each person of the society is responsible to play his due role in this direction, he added.

Dr.Zahid Sadder said that lack of awareness and illiteracy is restricting the people in Pakistan to undergo HIV/AIDS tests and adopt required medical treatment to counter the disease.

He said that SHEDS is providing the test of HIV/AIDS and Syphilis (sexually transmitted disease) free of cost to the people compared to the private laboratories, which are charging huge amount from them for the said tests, he added.

The number of HIV/ AIDS patients is 1838 in Sindh and if efforts are not made at an early stage, the number of HIV/AIDS patients could increase at a rapid pace, said Dr. Zahid Saddar. Only mass awareness could control the disease from spreading, he added. (APP)