UN cultural agency leads AIDS awareness workshop in Afghanistan

Amid concerns about the potential spread of HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recently led a two-day workshop in Kabul to help improve preventive education and raise awareness.

More than 20 officials from the country’s Ministry of Education, as well as Kabul Education University representatives and teachers, attended last week’s event, the agency said.

At the end of the workshop, UNESCO and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UN/AIDS) launched a toolkit programme designed to reinforce preventive education and increase collaboration on fighting the deadly disease.

UNESCO said 500 copies of the toolkit, containing basic information on the virus in both Dari and Pashto languages, are being distributed to officials and teacher training institutions.

There are only 58 registered cases of HIV in Afghanistan, but health officials fear the real number is much higher.

Experts have warned that the war-torn country faces a high risk of an HIV/AIDS epidemic because of several factors, including the growing number of injecting drug users, the high number of internally displaced people, the low status of women, and a weak public health system.