Rallies, workshops, seminars mark World AIDS Day
- AU VC Prof G Nageswara Rao calls upon the youth to create awareness on the AIDS among people
- DMHO administers pledge with rally participants
Visakhapatnam: The World AIDS Day was observed at various places here on Saturday. Various programmes including rallies, workshops and seminars organised to mark the occasion. District Medical and Health Office and Andhra University jointly organised a massive rally followed by a meeting.
Addressing the gathering at B R Ambedkar Assembly Hall in the campus, Vice Chancellor Prof G Nageswara Rao called upon the youth to create awareness on the AIDS. The VC opined that, if one has knowledge and awareness on the HIV and AIDS, it is easy to escape from the deadly disease.
Joint Collector-2 Dr A Siri stressed on the importance of blood tests to identify the HIV positive cases. She said that 32,700 AIDS patients were identified in Visakhapatnam district and the government was distributing the medicines at free cost and Rs 1,000 pension to the patients.
District Medical and Health Officer Dr S Tirupati Rao, District AIDS Control Officer Dr Ramesh and GVMC Additional Commissioner P V Murthy also addressed the gathering.
The DMHO administered the pledge among the participants. Earlier, Minister for Tribal Welfare K Sravan Kumar flagged off an AIDS awareness rally at GVMC building.
World AIDS Day was observed at Visakha Steel General Hospital with the theme ‘Live Life Positively-Know your HIV status.’ RINL Director KC Das flagged off the rally and students from different schools of Ukkunagaram participated. Speaking on the occasion, Das stressed on the importance of educating people about prevention of the disease.
After the rally, as part of awareness programme, children of Delhi Public School played a skit and the children of Chaitanya Public School performed a dance “Do not harm yourself but arm yourself with knowledge to combat AIDS.
Dr G Uma DGM (Medical) and Dr C Gargeyi, DGM (Medical) radiology distributed prizes and certificates to all the participants. A quiz was conducted by Dr A P Naveen Kumar, chief specialist (Gen Med) to create awareness among children. Dr P Hema Sundar also present.