ISLAMABAD: The lawmakers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Balochistan on Thursday vowed to table bills for the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS in their respective assemblies and invite experts from the national and international agencies working on the prevention of HIV, including the UNAIDS, to brief other members to make prevention of viral disease part of health agendas.
They also vowed to establish task forces comprising parliamentarians and other experts in their respective provinces to deal with the spread of HIV and assured that the standing committees on health would be engaged to work for the prevention of HIV as well as treatment of those who are not taking antiretroviral medicines.
They were speaking at the concluding session of a three-day workshop on ‘Sensitization and Engagement of National and Provincial Parliamentarians on HIV Prevention’, which was jointly organised by the UNAIDS and the UNDP to create awareness regarding the HIV, its modes of transmission, and how to prevent it. The workshop was attended by around 20 MNAs as well as MPAs from Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan assemblies.
Experts from the UNAIDS and UNDP briefed the parliamentarians regarding the basics of HIV and AIDS, prevalence in Pakistan, challenges in HIV prevention, issue of stigma and discrimination and problems faced by the HIV positive people in getting treatment and other support in the country.
Lawmakers from the Balochistan Assembly, who especially remained most active during the workshop and vowed to convince at least 100,000 people to get themselves tested for the HIV and struggle for getting a sizeable amount allocated from the provincial health budget for the prevention and treatment of HIV in the province.
“I will convince the people in my constituency as well as other areas of Balochistan to get themselves screened for HIV, so that those who are infected could take precautionary measures and get medicines to live a healthy and normal life,” MPA Khalil George committed at the workshop.
Another MPA from Balochistan, Nasarullah Khan, said he would also raise the issue of HIV to ascertain its burden, prevalence and what measures were being taken by the provincial government, so that effective legislation could be made to prevent the people from contracting the infectious disease.
A provincial minister from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Shaukat Yousufzai, said he and other MPAs from the treasury benches would table the HIV’s prevention and control bill in the assembly on the occasion of World AIDS Day 2022 on the pattern of Sindh, which is the only province to have passed the law for the prevention, control and treatment of HIV in 2013.
Other MPAs from Punjab and Sindh said they were not aware of the seriousness of the issue prior to the sensitisation workshop and vowed that they would not only raise voice for the effective legislation in the assembly but also stress for the implementation of laws in their respective provinces.
Community Support Advisor UNAIDS Fahmida Khan, Dr Nashmia Mahmood, Programme Specialist HIV from UNDP, Dr Rajwal Khan Strategic Information Advisor from UNAIDS and Syed Mohsin Abbas from UNDP briefed the parliamentarians on HIV situation in the country, while Heather Doyle from the UNDP as well as other officials also attended the workshop.