ITANAGAR, 12 Aug: Youths and women of the Adi community attended an awareness programme organised at the Solung Mopin ground here on Friday morning to mark the International Youth Day (IYD).
This year, the IYD is being celebrated around the world with the theme ‘Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a World for All Ages’.
The awareness programme was organised by the Arunachal Pradesh State AIDS Control Society (APSACS), with support from the Solung Festival Celebration Committee (SFCCI-2022), Itanagar.
Addressing the participants, APSACS Chairman Dr M Lego spoke on preventing HIV/AIDS, using social media in a constructive manner, the role of the youths, the importance of mental health, the drug menace, etc.
“The youths have to play an important role to address all the above challenges in society. People living with HIV are not coming up due to social stigma. The youths can act as an intervention or mediator to spread messages among all age groups in ending the stigma in the society,” he said.
APSACS Project Director Riken Rina informed that “Arunachal is one of the lowest HIV prevalence states in the country, and the current HIV prevalence ratio is 0.06 percent, which is the lowest in India.”
“The state’s first HIV/AIDS case was detected in 1998, and, as of 31 March, 2022, 465 HIV-infected people were detected in Arunachal. A dedicated care centre has been set up exclusively at the TRIHMS, where every treatment facility is provided to HIV-infected patients,” he informed.
He also said that “Arunachal is the only state having a guesthouse for HIV-infected people, and facilities like transportation, food and accommodation are provided free of cost, including routine tests up to MRI.”
Stating that, since the youths are most vulnerable to drug addiction and AIDS infection, Rina, who is also looking after the de-addiction centres set up under the Mukhya Mantri Nasha Mukt Abhiyan, urged the youths who are into drugs to “come forward or if someone knows that their friend is consuming drugs to refer to them as to help them get back to society.”
Mrs Arunachal 2022 Daisy Em Ragi and SFCCI-2022 president Nangkong Perme also spoke.