30-06-2012, 02:31 PM
Aids preventive services being re-launched
Aids preventive services.docx (Size: 15.8 KB / Downloads: 26)
Before the programme commenced in July 2010, the maximum level of HIV prevalence among IDUs was 20 per cent in seven cities – Faisalabad, Lahore, Gujranwala, Sargodha, Multan, Mandi Bahauddin and D.G. Khan. However, the Punjab health department in the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the proposed project in seven cities conceded that the disease had reached dangerous level of 52.5 per cent in Faisalabad where the project’s maximum budget of Rs9.935 million had been set aside out of Rs26 million.
The executing organisations – NGOs and civil society entities – under the ToR were required to keep or bring the HIV prevalence among IDUs to less than 15 per cent in Faisalabad and Lahore, five per cent in Gujranwala and Multan, and 25 per cent in Sargodha at the completion of the eight-month long programme.
Faisalabad is not the only city to have touched the alarming level of HIV prevalence. The situation has worsened in other cities too with D.G. Khan having HIV prevalence of 49.6 per cent, Sargodha, 40.5 per cent, Lahore, 30.8 per cent and Multan 24.9 per cent.
But many wonder why no organisation assigned the work to provide preventive services has been blacklisted for failing to achieve the set target when the selection of most of them for the next round of intervention is likely to start from May.
They warned that the manner in which the next round had been planned would further deteriorate the situation. Under the plan, only 600 IDUs would be provided services for the first month and the number would gradually increase each month to reach over 14,000 in the last month of the programme. They also expressed concern over making it mandatory for the service providing agencies to disclose identities of the clients to the PACP. They pointed out that the World Bank had expressed its concern when a project for IDUs funded by it had been terminated by the PACP after the executing organisations refused to divulge the identities of the IDUs being provided service in 2010.
When contacted, Deputy Project Director PACP Faisal Majeed conceded that no executing organisation had been blacklisted and claimed that targets had been successfully achieved in totality.