Proper education to prevent HIV epidemic

Ratnapura group corr.

The school leavers of the Ratnapura district were in danger of falling victims to the increasing incidence of the HIV, the deadly disease, raising its ugly head in recent times, warned Dr. (Mrs.) D. Wattearatchi attached to the Sex Related Diseases Unit of the Ratnapura Hospital recently.

She made these observations at a workshop held at the 'Samurdhi Hall' New Town, Ratnapura last week, to educate the public on the ways and means of preventing the disease from getting a new lease of life and provide instructions to safeguard the children by taking timely action.

The workshop was organised by the Sabaragamuwa Provincial Health Services Dept. together with the Ministry of Health and the HIV Control Project. It was attended by a large crowd of the public with over 500 female students of the Ratnapura district.

Sabaragamuwa Governor Regi Ranathunga, Chief Minister Mahipala Herath, Provincial Minister of Health Lalith Dissanayake and Media Consultant Edwin Ariyadasa were among the distinguished guests.

Dr. (Mrs.) Wattearatchi revealed that the first HIV patient in Ratnapura was identified in 1987. Since then the HIV patients had been increased in number up to 3 per cent in proportion to the number of patients in Sri Lanka. Last year 1,142 blood tests had been performed with little success. Only 5 patients had been identified in Ratnapura according to records, she said.

In many areas in Ratnapura including Kiriella, a large number of unidentified patients remained under cover.

Among the blood-tested patients 4.8 per cent were school leavers, 48.4 per cent were employees and 28.2 per cent were housewives. The professional prostitutes amounted to 3.1 per cent. Dr. Chandrika Wickremasuriya, specialist in charge of the HIV Control Unit said that it was possible for a large proportion of professional prostitutes to remain unidentified as they keep away from blood-test examination. She also pointed out that, though the official number of patients amounted to only 649, the actual number could well exceed 3,500, at the national level. She said that the tests carried out during the last 3 months, had detected 35 HIV patients.

Edwin Ariyadasa stressed the importance of giving the school leaving children in particular and the children in general correct sex education as a safeguard against the HIV and other sex related diseases. Such a step could prevent children, blindly performing experiments and fall victims to the HIV disease, he added.

Sabaragamuwa Provincial Council Secretary Jayalath Dissanayake, The Governor's Secretary, M. W. Athula, and the doctors and officials of the Provincial Ministry of Health were present on the occasion.