Pakistan
With an HIV prevalence rate of 0.1 percent, Pakistan
faces a concentrated epidemic among some key
populations, and the country is at high risk for an
HIV/AIDS epidemic. Several socioeconomic conditions
conducive to the spread of HIV exist in Pakistan,
including poverty, low levels of education, and high
unemployment, which lead to increased exposure
to the disease via migration to higher prevalence
countries. For about a decade after Pakistan’s first
case of HIV was reported in 1987, the majority of new
infections were among men who had been exposed
to the disease while abroad. By 1999, approximately
three-fourths of reported HIV infections occurred in
migrant workers returning from the Arab Gulf states.
Since then, HIV/AIDS infections are increasingly being
found among injecting drug users (IDUs), commercial
sex workers (CSWs), and prison inmates. As of
September 2005, the Government of Pakistan reported
3,073 people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA); however,
UNAIDS estimated in 2005 that 85,000 Pakistanis were
HIV-positive. According to UNAIDS, the country fits the stereotype of the typical Asian Epidemic Model scenario, where the
number of new infections grows rapidly in a late-developing epidemic.
USAID returned to Pakistan July 2002. Its initial activities included support of health sector reform in Pakistan to improve service coverage, responsiveness, quality and efficiency. In February 2006, USAID implemented the Pakistan HIV and AIDS Prevention and Care Project (PHAPCP), a three-year, $2.7 million project designed to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS.
View the USAID HIV/AIDS Health Profile for Pakistan - March 2008 [PDF,
145KB]
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