AIDS remains of the world’s most significant public health challenges, particularly in low-and middle-income people, and Bangladesh is no exception. At times, it is seen HIV positive cases go to the extent of hiding the disease they are infected with, causing serious problem in the family.
Thirty-three-year-old Abdul Kaium (not real name) recently came back from a Middle Eastern country. After his return home his family decided to marry him off and Kaium was married to a woman of his same village. As the couple started new married life, the wife noticed that her husband often remained sick and suffered from fever.
The woman asked Kaium to visit a doctor for treatment but, he was not interested. Later, his wife forced Kaium to visit a doctor. After that, he admitted that he was a HIV patient.
Such a situation requires the authorities’ need to release a set of normative guidelines and provides support to AIDS patients to improve and scale up HIV prevention, treatment and support services for all patients in need.
Sources said, a total of 658 persons have been newly identified as HIV AIDS patients in the country. Of them, 76 percent is male, 21 percent female and three percent is transgender. Surprisingly, among the newly infected patients, the number of married persons is high and their percentage is 70.6. And the percentage of unmarried persons is 23.16 while the number of HIV AIDS patients is more than14,000. But, only 8,033 patients have been brought under treatment, sources said, adding that a total of 124 Rohingyas have also been infected with HIV. Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Line Director (TB-L&ASP) Professor Dr Md Samiul Islam said a total of 13,32,589 HIV AIDS virus detection test were held between November 2019 and November 2020 while the number was about 21.33 lakh in 2019. He said 658 persons were tested HIV AIDS positive newly. “Of them, 124 persons are Rohingyas. A total of 141 patients died during the period while a total of 1,383 persons died till now by the disease,” he added. He said among the newly positive patients, 76 percent is male, 21 percent female and three percent is transgender. Of the infected persons, the number of married male persons is more than others, topping 70.6 percent.
Samiul said of the newly infected patients, 12.24 percent is above 50 years, 74.20 percent is between 25 years and 49 years, 8.85 percent is between 19 years and 24 years, 2.07 percent is between 10 years and 18 years, 0.75 percent is between 6 years and 9 years and 1.88 percent is between zero and five years.
He said among the newly infected persons, 218 patients are from Dhaka, 127 from Chattogram, 64 from Khulna, 45 from Sylhet, 28 from Barishal, 27 from Rajshahi, 15 from Mymensingh and 15 from Rangpur division.
The doctor said there are about 3.40 crore AIDS patients across the globe. Of them, 1.80 crore people have been infected with the virus newly. A total of 6.90 lakh patients died while 2.50 crore patients are undergoing treatment.
