Speakers at a roundtable discussion in the Rajshahi city on Tuesday stressed the need for mass awareness of HIV/AIDS issues to check the spread of the deadly disease.
There is still a wrong notion about the infection and spread of the HIV/AIDS in the absence of adequate information and thus the youths, representing a big portion of society, are at risk of the disease, they observed.
The speakers said the mass media could play a vital role in raising mass awareness through reporting, features and documentaries.
They also said the main challenge in preventing AIDS was the stigma and attitude towards the marginalised population like injecting drug users, sex workers, which make them inaccessible to the intervention programme.
They said HIV/AIDS was not only health issue but also a social development issue and universal access would never be achieved without human rights.
Rights-based responses to HIV are practical and effective, they added.
The roundtable on ‘Universal Access and Human Rights’ was organised by Rajshahi Civil Surgeon, in collaboration with CARE Bangladesh, on the Rajshahi Medical College Hospital campus.
Rajshahi civil surgeon doctor Johurul Islam as a chief guest in the programme said the present government was completely aware of the HIV/AIDS risk among the youths keeping in view that the country’s future solely depended on the growth of the young generation..
Doctor Rupali Shishir Banu, programme manager of CARE Bangladesh, in her keynote, suggested self-responsiveness as the key to HIV prevention.
She said focus on behaviour was essential for the lasting result, adding that involvement of private sectors was important to sustain the HIV/AIDS prevention programme.
Among others, Abul Fazol, chief health officer of Rajshahi City Corporation, Mahmud Hasan, programme manager of National AIDS/STD Programme, and its deputy programme manager Hasan Mahmud, Hamida Begum, additional director of Social Welfare Department of Rajshahi, addressed the meeting.
