‘Getting to zero’ AIDS campaign from today

MYSORE: District Aids Prevention and Control Unit (DAPCU) will join the rest of Karnataka to launch a six-week long Information Education and Communication (IEC) campaign – ‘Onde Hejje’ (just one step) on December 1, which has been observed as World Aids Day since 1988.
The campaign themes are: HIV counseling and testing and condom promotion with a slogan: ‘To safety – Use condoms’ and ‘Fear or doubt – test is the best.’
Mysore DAPCU officer Dr T Raghukumar told TOI that the campaign that will be organized from December 1, 2011 to January 12, 2012, will aim to educate students, because HIV is more prevalent among youths.
They will visit educational institutions to spread the word among the learners across the district through NGOs and community-based organizations.
Meanwhile, they will also intensify condom promotion activities by installing plastic sun boards – each containing 1,000 condoms, in public places in consultation with sex workers organizations. The campaign has been initiated by Karnataka State Aids Prevention Society, explained Raghukumar.
The officer claimed that adult HIV prevalence in Mysore has continued its steady decline from the estimated level of 11% in 2008 through 8% in 2009, 5.18% in 2010 to 5% in 2011.
He attributed the decline to awareness programmes taken up by them along with NGOs and community-based organizations.
About 3.75 lakh, people were tested between 2002 and 2011 (till-Oct) in Mysore, of which, 15,887 have been tested positive for HIV including 841 ANC-HIV cases. Mysore has some 27 integrated counselling and testing centres, two ART centres and seven link-ART centres for identification and treatment of persons affected by HIV. Mysore has two PCR centres to test and treat children with HIV and two community care centres. The district has seven NGOs – SVYM Samasta DIC, Ananda Jyothi Network, Ashodaya, Prerana, SPAD, Ashakirana, Vimochana and FPAI that are working for the welfare of infected persons. District authorities say the major challenge for them is doing follow-up treatment of people on ART, especially from other districts.
This year’s world AIDS theme is ‘Getting to zero’ – zero HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero aids related deaths.