LARKANA: The Directorate of CDC/HIV/AIDS Sindh organized an HIV/AIDS advocacy session on HIV/AIDS for journalists at Shahnawaz Bhutto Memorial Library here on Saturday which was not participated by the Director, Health Services, Larkana Region, other important stakeholders and only selected journalists took part due to which the hall beard a deserted look because the concerned HIV department has been making tall claims and issuing warnings to working journalists but has done nothing practically for the affected families of Ratodero and other areas.
In this regard, Dr. Irshad Kazmi, Additional Director General said while addressing the gathering that the statistics given by the media about HIV/AIDS patients in Larkana district are not correct. He said screening will be done in a high risk population through special teams soon to be constituted, adding while any representative wants to do screening in his area, we will provide him with full facilities.
On the other hand, very few journalists who participated in the conference asked Dr. Kazmi few questions that the patients have been complaining that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced and promised endowment fund, free transport, free medicines and financial support for the affected patients over two years ago in Ratodero, but so far it has not been implemented and the in-charges of all HIV centers in Larkana district hide the data instead of sharing it with media persons.
What are the reasons for this? Why not family counselling, community counselling, and HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns at the community level have been closed? Why are people from UNICEF, Global Fund, WHO or other international donor organizations kept away from the media when they come to Larkana or Ratodero? Why does the Sindh AIDS Program bosses not tell the accurate data of aid received when asked by the media? Whether accurate patient data is shared with international organizations or fabricated statistics are given to them?
Dr. Kazmi evaded the replies and said that a committee of endowment fund has already been formed headed by the commissioner of Larkana as this is not the work of the AIDS Program and data will henceforth be released from all the centers of Larkana.
On the other hand, Imtiaz Jalbani, a resident of Ratodero, father of two HIV/AIDS-affected children, said that the claim about the large amount of drugs by the HIV/AIDS authorities is entirely baseless and concocted to save their skin.
He said for the past several months, hundreds of patients have not been getting the drugs which they really need to remain alive. He said that medicines are so expensive that poor parents are unable to buy regularly for their children and now after flash floods their condition is pathetic.
He said that there are no statistics of thousands of patients, adding if complete screening of Larkana district is done, alarming statistics of patients will be revealed. He said most of the attendants in today’s session were their own employees to digest funds. He said that currently more than 60 children have died in Ratodero but the rulers and the bureaucrats have no sense of our pain and suffering.