Five AIDS patients die in 15 days

Three of them died at Infectious Diseases Hospital at Mohakhali while one person had been under the treatment of Dhaka Ahsania Mission and the other death was reported by Ashar Alo, an NGO that works for HIV-positives.

This was disclosed at an information-sharing meeting organised by the Ahsania Mission at its auditorium in the city yesterday.

According to government estimates, 134 people have been identified as HIV-positive and a total of 74 HIV/AIDS patients died as of December 2005.

At the meeting titled 'Community capacity building for HIV prevention', the speakers called for strong socio-political, socio-religious and socio-cultural commitments as well as strengthening of community capacity for the prevention of the deadly disease.

As a large number of people are illiterate and most of them are living in rural areas, an effective strategy should be developed in order to reach them and make them aware about HIV/AIDS, said Unesco Representative Wolfgang Vollmann.

"The most important challenge is how to convey the message to the people who are illiterate," he added.

The Ahsania Mission started a project titled 'Creating an enabling environment for HIV prevention' in October last year to prevent the spread of HIV infections and help avert an epidemic of HIV in the country.

The objective of the project, funded by Unesco, is to build local capacity for community initiative through orientation and training of the stakeholders, advocacy, technical support and establishment of links with support providing agencies.

The project is now being implemented at 25 districts under five divisions with the involvement of teachers, journalists, imams, Union Parishad members, NGO representatives and doctors.

Director of Ahsania Mission Prof Nurul Islam, Prof MA Sobhan and Deputy Director (Programme) Gazi Nazrul Islam Faisal were also present at the meeting.