CHENNAI: The most promising finding of the Behaviour Surveillance Survey is that awareness about HIV, STDs, infection types and myths is at an all-time high. The fact that the rise in awareness is consistent across all the high-risk groups shows that the government groups and close to a hundred NGOs have reason to pat themselves on their backs.While the awareness about symptoms of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and HIV among female sex workers (FSW) had seen a dip in the thirteen years between 1996 and 2009, the numbers have gone up again this year, “There has been a promising increase of awareness among FSWs to 52.4 per cent,” said a doctor with APAC. But more promising was the implication that 94.1 per cent of those surveyed said that they had gone to a qualified medical practitioner as soon as they had noticed symptoms of occupational diseases. The lack of misconceptions about HIV among truckers and helpers was also noted as part of the survey as the awareness showed an increase of 16 per cent.Finally, one of the most difficult groups to keep track of – migrant workers (MW) who have usually not shown much awareness about HIV, registered a spike as far as their lack of misconceptions were concerned at 86.2 per cent.
Comments
0 comment