National media to promote AIDS awareness

Local journalists have been asked to participate with both government and non-government organizations in a national media campaign aimed at raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, according to sources in the health sector. "We want Arab journalists to help forge Arab public opinion on AIDS,” explained Zohair Abu Faris, president of the Jordanian Society for Health and Culture (JSHC), an Amman-based NGO. "We need to make people and patients more informed about the disease.” The campaign, scheduled to begin later this month, is being organised by JSHC in cooperation with the health ministry’s National AIDS Programme (NAP), established in 1986 shortly after the first case of HIV/AIDS was diagnosed in the country. Along with awareness drives, NAP has also established several voluntary testing centres in recent years. Persons living with HIV/AIDS in Jordan, meanwhile, are provided with free medical treatment. According to official figures, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Jordan is 435, of which 159 are nationals. Because of the difficulties associated with detecting the illness, however, official estimates have recently been raised to approximately 600. "Although Jordan is a low prevalence country, efforts should be made to keep the prevalence of the infection at its current level – and to decrease it,” said Minister of Health Said Darwazeh in a message posted on the NAP website. Some observers, however, have suggested that official approximations are too low. “The problem is bigger than what is estimated,” said Dr Sana Naffa, UNAIDS technical coordinator for Jordan. According to estimates by UNAIDS, some one thousand people in the kingdom may have already been affected by HIV/AIDS. In the past, awareness campaigns have tried to target the highest-risk groups, such as health workers, members of the armed forces, frequent travellers, workers in the tourist sector and refugees, according to Dr Asaad Rahal of the NAP. “We also screen blood donors in order to prevent the transmission [via transfusions] of HIV/AIDS,” said Rahal. According to official figures, most HIV-positive persons in Jordan are between the ages of 20 and 39, with males representing roughly two-thirds of documented cases. The primary means of transmission in cases reported between 1997 and 2001 were heterosexual sex (40 percent); infected blood transfusions (38.9 percent); homosexual sex (3.2 percent); injection drug use (3.2 percent); and mother-to-child transmission (1.1 percent), according to the 2004 UNAIDS fact sheet. In the meantime, health workers are optimistic for the upcoming campaign’s prospects. "We expect other intellectuals and public opinion-makers to join our initiative,” said Abu Faris. “We want to communicate real information on the dangers of the disease and how it’s transmitted.”