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Stakeholders of Chetheba attend HIV/AIDS prog
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morungexpress on August 12, 2012 06:25:00
 
Dimapur, August 11 (MExN): The Rükizumi Welfare Society, Pfütsero organized an
advocacy programme on HIV/AIDS with the stakeholders of 18th Chozuba Assembly
Constituency on August 3 at Chetheba. Chotisuh Sazo, Parliamentary Secretary for
Social Welfare, Women and Child Development was the guest of honour. The
resource persons were Dr R. Rose, State Programme Officer NSACS, and Dr Vinito
L. Chishi, State Programme Coordinator, Legislative Forum on UNAIDS Nagaland.
A word of welcome was delivered by Andrew, the SDO (C) of Chozuba.  Basic of
HIV/AIDS was deliberated by Dr. R Rose who also said that HIV is a chronic but
manageable disease. He asserted that the world will come out with a medicine
that will be able to kill the virus and the people who are infected by the virus
will be able to get cured from the disease one day. Dr. Rose also stressed the
issue of HIV-TB co-infection. In his presentation he said, “HIV and TB are
closely related but TB can be cured whereas HIV has no cure till today.” The
Government of India is working towards TB free country where all of us as
citizens have to contribute.
Dr. Vinito in his presentation presented the HIV scenario and commented that
Nagaland is among the six high HIV prevalence state in India. “The rapid
growth of infection rate of HIV in the country has led to formation of
Legislative Forum in all the states of India,” he stated. Vetsurayi Tetseo,
Chief Functionary of the Rükizumi Welfare Society highlighted the activities of
the organization. Mese Letro, president of PNP+ and the first HIV+ declared in
Phek disrict shared his testimony and how he started working towards the birth
of positive network in the district. In his speech he said, “I went through
immense stigma and discrimination even among my very close friends, which was
the most painful thing I faced as an HIV+ person.” He also said that God has
been so merciful and faithful that He has made everything possible in due course
of time. He also plead to the general community to look at HIV+ people with the
attitude of normalcy, taking it as any other disease which can affect an
individual.
Parliamentary Secretary for Social Welfare, Women and Child Development talked
of what Denmark did to the people who were infected with HIV and went on to say
that due to high stigmatization, the infection rate increased rapidly in the
country. It finally dawned to them that stigma and discrimination do not help
solve the problem and so they changed their approach by contributing to the
needs of the HIV+ people. Not only that they even started donating 80 million
Krones to other countries annually to support the cause of preventing the spread
of HIV. The guest speaker also strongly stressed that HIV is not an individual
problem but the concern of the society as a whole. He further goes on to say
that stigma and discrimination against the HIV+ people will only result in the
increase of infection rather than reducing.
The programme was attended by DAPCU officials and hundreds of stakeholders from
various walks of life of the 18th Chozuba Assembly Constituency.