Port Blair, Apr 12: A & N AIDS Control Society is functioning under the supervision and guidance of the Project Director. A workshop was conducted on HIV/AIDS, STD, Blood Donation motivation and Condom Promotion at Community Hall, Deen street, Junglighat on 10.04.2021 at 10.30 am.
The programmes are conducted under the leadership of Dr. M. Joy, Project Director, ANACS. The awareness campaign among sanitary workers is conceived to get the people at the last mile for creating an awareness regarding HIV/AIDS and its prevention.
Mr. Girish Kumar AD (SPM) briefed the gathering about HIV/AIDS, occurrences, spread, treatment and HIV/AIDS (Prevention & Control) Act, 2017.The knowledge of preventing, discrimination and stigma against HIV/AIDS. Also motivated the gathering for Voluntary Blood Donation, shared the importance and benefits of blood donation. Youths are important target group who need to know all about HIV/AIDS. 60 participants attended the programme. A large number of them were sanitary inspectors and sanitary workers from PBMC. Mr. Kaushik Kumar Halder, AD (IEC) deliberated about the condom promotion.
Many people do not feel symptoms of HIV in the first few months after infection and may not know that they are infected. Others may experience influenza-like symptoms, including fever, headache, rash and sore throat. HIV spreads through body fluids and high risk behavior. HIV is treated with Antiretroviral Therapy consisting of one or more medicines. ART does not cure HIV but reduces its replication in the blood, thereby reducing the viral load to an undetectable level and increases the longevity of life.
We aim to reach out to people in the community and test them where they are, with proper counseling and consent. The programme was concluded with a question and answer and the testing of “Community based Screening (CBS)” for the participants present in the workshop and 33 participants came forward for “Knowing their HIV Status” by voluntarily getting themselves tested which will be kept confidential.