Pakistan is no country for the young, the old, or the sick. The country’s rickety health infrastructure, ignorance among health professionals and successive governments inability to put the people first have resulted in Pakistan today staring at an impending HIV/AIDS epidemic.
According to a recent report by UNAIDS, HIV cases in Pakistan rose from 75,000 in 2010 to 270,000 in 2022. According to UNAIDS, Pakistan has the second fastest rate of HIV increase in the Asia-Pacific region “due to the spread of the virus from the key populations to the general population through sexual network.” While under 0.1 percent of the general population live with HIV, key segments like drug addicts, male and female sex workers, trans people, and same-sex partners are in the grip of the affliction.
According to an editorial in Dawn, “authorities must launch preventive strategies on a war footing. Battling the stigma attached to HIV is the first step, followed by an expansive testing programme for vulnerable populations to reduce the positivity rate, alongside awareness about volunteering for testing.”
As the editorial pointed out, “providing healthcare, information and resources are the responsibility of the state and not the people. Policies should be built around the vulnerable to break the poverty cycle, keep girls in school and make health facilities safer. Social inequality cannot imperil a healthy future.”
