Tuesday, 12 December 2006

JEDDAH: AIDS awareness in Saudi Arabia is still in its early stages due to secrecy and difficulty of tackling such matter, according to the national campaign to fight AIDS held Sunday on the occasion of World AIDS Day.

Addressing the event, Princess Aliaa Bint Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz called for making pre-marital AIDS test mandatory.

"This subject is very delicate. I will personally follow up with it, because the AIDS test must be obligatory before signing the marriage contract," she said. Currently, the Ministry of Health does not require a pre-marital AIDS test due to financial concerns.

However, according to Dr. Sana Filimban, Director of King Saud Hospital for Infectious Diseases, the Ministry Of Health has already put the issue of pre-marital blood tests on the table to be discussed.

Princess Aliaa assured the audience that she would make sure that these tests are started in hospitals because health comes first. She also appealed for the introduction of sex education in schools. It is better that children get the correct information from schools, rather than be misinformed, she said. 

In order to combat the disease, programs other than the medical test must be initiated. Education about the disease, as well as general sex education, is essential. This way, the public could be made aware of how the disease can be prevented.

Contrary to popular belief, AIDS cannot be contracted through touching the same phone, shaking hands, or eating and drinking the same food or drink. Also, it cannot be picked up on public transportation or even in swimming pools.

AIDS patients suffer because of the belief that the disease is as contagious as the common cold. As a result, patients endure humiliation and alienation from society. Since AIDS can only be contracted through blood transfusions, sharing needles or engaging in forbidden and unsafe sexual activities, AIDS patients also tend to be blamed for contracting the disease.

Faced with hostility and rejected by society, they find themselves struggling to survive. Even finding a job is now impossible. One patient said that he was fired from his government job and not allowed to even be a taxi driver. One AIDS patient even said, "Some are so desperate to get a job, they say there is no need for medication when they don't have anything to eat." At the event, organizers hit a plan of coordinating a program with Saudi businessmen to provide new jobs for patients. 

According to Filimban, it is the Ministry of Labor's duty to resolve the employment problems, since the Ministry Of Health's role ends with providing them with a cure.

At the conference, there were some criticisms of the evasiveness of organizers. According to Filimban, the conference was merely an exercise in raising awareness, and it failed to provide solid solutions for AIDS activism in the Kingdom. 

According to the Ministry of Health, the percentage of people infected with AIDS in Saudi Arabia increased by more than 20% in the last two years, particularly among males.

In 2004, AIDS patients in the Kingdom totaled 1111 - 203 men and 59 women. By 2005, the number had increased to 1,201 - 230 men and 81 women. This means, on average, a case is discovered every 3-4 days. AIDS is a relatively new infectious disease, but it has killed over a million people all of over the world since it was discovered over 20 years ago.

By Amani Al-Solami and Kholood F Al-Rahmah

© The Saudi Gazette 2006