KATHMANDU: The World AIDS Day is being observed in Nepal also with the theme, “Live and let live” by organising various awareness-raising programmes.
The theme has been adopted this year as per the resolve of the United Nations General Assembly held in 2001 to eliminate the neglect of and discrimination against the HIV/AIDS patients with top priority with the objective of protecting and promoting the human rights of the persons infected and affected with this dreaded disease.
Various programmes against HIV/AIDS will be held in Nepal also from today to mark the commencement of the campaign.
In his message on the occasion, Minister for Health Dr. Upendra Devkota said that as AIDS is contracted through unsafe sex, unsterilised hypodermic needle, syringe and untested blood, patients suffering from it should not be ostracised.
Health Minister Dr. Devkota has said that the ignorance prevailing in the society, wrong notion on the medium of spread of the disease, prejudice to link it with bad habits, its incurability, unaccountable behaviour of the mass media on the mode of its spread and the social norms on sex and sexuality, illness for a long time and the spectre of death have helped in increasing negligence and discrimination.
In the message, he has pointed out the need of commitment on the part of all concerned to lay emphasis on education to raise awareness among the masses against HIV/AIDS in accordance with the recently introduced HIV/AIDS strategy (2002-06), formulating suitable policy and legal provisions for the protection of the rights of the the persons infected and affected with it and making the governmental agencies, institutions, organisations and offices and persons providing employment to make accountable towards the rights of the patients.
In a message on the occasion, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said stigma and discrimination are the major obstacles to effective HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and the focus on the world aids campaign on stigma and discrimination represents an effort to place human rights at the forefront of global advocacy efforts.
“We have to bring about changes in our behaviour, communities and laws to fight the epidemic and we must step up efforts to eliminate discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, and adopt and enforce legislation to protect human rights”, reads the message.
Regional Director of the World Health Organisation, WHO, Dr Uton Muchtar Rafei has called upon one and all to work together and establish a socially enabling environment and create mechanisms to address stigma and discrimination arising out of HIV/AIDS.
In Nepal, the recorded number of HIV positive as of October 31, 2002 is 2,525 including 1,837 male and 687 female. Some 620 of them have already developed AIDS, says the national centre for AIDS and STD control.
According to the centre the epidemic has so far led to 153 deaths in the country.
The highest number of people infected with HIV include clients of sex workers, followed by the sex workers themselves, the injecting drug users and housewives.
Eighteen people acquired hiv virus in october of which one had already developed AIDS, adds the centre.
The global figure on the epidemic presented by WHO/UNAIDS says that some 40 million people were living with hiv at the end of 2001 including five million newly infected in the same year.
Some three million people including 1.3 million men, 1.1 million women and 580,000 children died of AIDS in 2001.
A majority of HIV infection or 70 per cent world-wide occurs through unsafe sex between men and women.
The WHO/UNAIDS also estimated that world-wide about 63 million men, women and children have been infected with hiv and 21.8 million people have died of AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic.