New support for AIDS patients [Archives:2006/1007/Local News]
SANA'A, Dec. 11 ) The Ministry of Health an Population is making a large effort to control a potential epidemic in the country with it's new AIDS and STIs program, according to the health minister, Abdul Karim Rasae.
“Health cannot be achieved without the participation and interaction and incorporation for improving AIDS patients,” said Rasae, speaking at a conference to mark World AIDS Day.
The ministry established two voluntary AIDS testing centers for patients in Sana'a and people are using centers to get tested and are treated with confidentiality.
Rasae said Yemen is still one of the countries where AIDS has not spread quickly because the number of AIDS cases in Yemen still only 1,889 cases, as recorded in June. He pointed that AIDS patients are not all of Yemeni nationality, but there are others especially from the horn African countries.
“There are five centers for AIDS patients the ministry intends to establish in other Yemeni governorates with the cooperation of the Global Fund of Fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” according to Rasae.
The national program for fighting AIDS is concerned with providing voluntary testing and promoting the testing centers throughout Yemen and also providing free drugs for AIDS patients in specialized centers for patients, said Dr. Fouzia Abdullah Gharamah, manager and director of the AIDS and STIs control program.
“Providing medical and health staff to rehabilitate the patients as well as provide studies, searches and information about AIDS disease are the national AIDS control priorities for defining disease type in our country and therefore help us to know what are the services we have to introduce for the community,” according to Gharamah.
Government, organizations, communities and the public were called to make extra efforts to minimize the AIDS risks.
“AIDS is not just a concern for the health ministry, but it concerns everyone which requires education and awareness,” said Flavia Pansieri, the U.N. resident coordinator in Yemen.
Pansieri said AIDS is often found due to poverty and “for this reason we will work together with the U.N. in order to reduce this disease.”
In August, Al-Iman University announced that they discovered the cure for AIDS according to the university's president and founder, Sheikh Abdulmajid Al-Zindani.
The health minister says he will assist Al-Zindani in distributed his cure to the world.
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