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Prevalence of HIV attributed to illiteracy by Pradeepkumar Kadkol

‘Several interventions for high risk groups have been taken up in Bagalkot'

There is an urgent need to involve elected representatives, especially women at the gram panchayat and taluk panchayat levels to conduct awareness programmes on HIV/AIDS, according to Ravi Kittur, a social worker and councillor at the ART Centre in Bijapur district hospital.

Mr. Kittur attributes high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in a large number of people in Bijapur and Bagalkot districts to the ignorance of the people owing to high rate of illiteracy. He adds that once people come to know that they are HIV positive, they become introverts and refuse to talk about it in public. He underlines the need for initiating a discussion on the subject at the grassroots level so that its spread can be contained.

As per the Human Development Index report of Bijapur district, the number of HIV affected people in the district in 2005 was 2,887 of which 247 cases were from Basavan Bagewadi, 2,418 from Bijapur, 133 from Indi, 58 from Muddebihal and 30 from Sindagi taluk. Though Bagalkot district is a model in the country as far as Interventions for High Risk Groups are concerned, HIV prevalence among the general public is high. The early interventions in Bagalkot district in the form of India Canada Collaborative HIV AIDS project (ICHAP) and later by Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society (KSAPS) and Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT) saw that the programmes for high risk groups saturated. The prevalence among sex workers has come down to six per cent in Mudhol and Jamakhandi taluks but the HIV prevalence among the bridge population is 41 percent and it is a little more than 50 per cent in the general population which is a cause for concern, according to experts.

Keeping this in view, the KSAPS had launched a door-to-door campaign in the month of August this year by involving actors and cricketers. Mr. Kittur says that he has taken the initiative to bring together sex workers in Bijapur district so that they can unitedly fight the spread of AIDS by way of becoming aware of safe sex practices and availing themselves of services to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.