As world marks AIDS Day, Pakistan sees alarming rise in HIV patients

Pakistan is facing a shocking rise in the number of AIDS/HIV patients throughout the country. An estimated 97,400 people have fallen prey to the disease while no commitment has been shown by the government and the United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) to control the disease, Pakistan Today has learnt. Despite observance of International AIDS Day throughout the world today (Saturday), employees of National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) from grade (1-17) are still awaiting their salaries that have not been paid since July 2012. Federal and provincial governments are facing serious problems in coordinating their efforts for controlling HIV in Pakistan because of which a new patient is being hospitalised on a daily basis. NACP is struggling not only because of non-payment of salaries since six months but also due to a lack of medicines, unavailability of cold storage for medicines and zero commitment levels from the federal and provincial governments and UNAIDS.
A doctor, on request of anonymity, told Pakistan Today that conditions are getting worse with each passing day as a new HIV patient was being registered with Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) on a daily basis, reflecting the alarming rise of the disease. “Most of these patients registered in PIMS are from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Mirpur in Sindh,” the doctor added.
When contacted, Nadeem Akhtar, an official from NACP, confirmed that the government and UNAIDS had as yet made no efforts regarding the situation at hand.
The NACP official disclosed that in the past 10 years, the number of HIV patients had tripled, with a single NACP centre registering 30 new HIV patients per month, as opposed to 10 in the past. Responding to a question regarding International AIDS Day, Akhtar said this year no activity had been planned primarily due to lack of resources. “How can we plan an activity on International AIDS Day when we haven’t been paid our salaries since July 2012 and are running short on medicines? Without continued medication the disease cannot be cured,” said the agitated NACP official. NACP is not even clear about its present legal status following the 18th Amendment and devolution of powers to provinces.
Another source in the programme told Pakistan Today that NACP had received 10 communications from the federal government in which they were informed that the project is being shut down and continuation at the federal level would end. On the other hand however, they had received the same number of communications from the federal government which assured that NACP would be continued and all issues would soon be resolved.
According to another source, after next month (December), NACP would run out of medicinal stock and no more medicine supply from international donors would be made to the AIDS control programme because of absence of any dialogue with donors and concerted efforts by the government.
After ignoring the 30-year-old National AIDS Control Programme and its projects, the government under the Ministry for Capital Administration and Development (CAD) has initiated another similar programme under the same title ‘NACP’ for Islamabad.
NACP official Naeem Akhtar said that UNAIDS was not serious in controlling the disease as it wanted to fund non-governmental organisations (NGOs) instead of assisting the government.
He was of the view that the basic role of UNAIDS is to provide advocacy to the government and to mobilise it, acting as a bridge between the government and institutions concerned so that the millennium goals may be achieved. However, he asserted that UNAIDS had failed in doing this job and mobilising international donors.