More than 4,140 Bangladeshis are now infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the health and family welfare minister told the parliament yesterday.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammad Nasim yesterday disclosed the figure in the parliament while replying to a written question of treasury bench member Shamim Osman on behalf of M Israfil Alam.
Quoting official statistics, Mohammad Nasim said that 4,143 HIV infected persons were detected up to November 2015, of them, 658 are dead.
He said the health ministry has taken various steps through Aids/STD control programme to prevent the communicable disease.
Nasim said the government is providing medical treatment and diagnostic services at 12 hospitals for HIV infected persons. Four government hospitals are providing free treatment and medicines including counselling to the
patients, he said.
Moreover, modern treatment is being provided to the HIV positive patients and drug-addicted people at the Infectious Disease Hospital at Mohakhali in Dhaka, he added.
Meanwhile, experts said, though the prevalence of HIV/Aids is low in the country, Bangladesh is still at high risk of the deadly disease spreading due to its demographic transition
and easy access to drugs.
“Bangladesh is a low HIV prevalence country, but we’re not free from the risk of HIV spreading,” Mohammad Wahid Hossain, chief of the Directorate General of Family Planning, said.
He said the recent population demographic shows the high number of youths and they have an easy access to drugs, which eventually put them at risk of spreading
diseases such as HIV/Aids.
Citing statistics, Wahid said if they stop working on HIV prevention, its prevalence will rise to 7% within 25 years which is now only at 0.1% in Bangladesh.
The experts said working with youths, most importantly the ones from at risk communities is always difficult as they are the most deprived and stigmatised section of the population.
“They’ve poor health-seeking behaviour as well as poor health knowledge. Furthermore stigma and discriminatory attitude from the general populace and also from the health professionals inhibits the at risk groups from having access of treatment,” Wahid said.
Findings of a study show that an enhanced sensitivity training to medical service providers reduces the stigma and discriminatory attitudes towards the at-risk groups significantly.