The Ministry of Health (MOH) participates in the celebration of the World AIDS Day for the year 1437H, under its own theme: “Don't Stay Ignorant”. The MOH targets all members of society; with a view to participating in eliminating the disease, within the framework of implementing the National Strategy for Combating AIDS in the Kingdom.
The MOH pointed out that the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN organizations for HIV/AIDS control, and all world countries, including Saudi Arabia, celebrate the World AIDS Day on the 1st December of every year, focusing on activating the curative and preventive activities in general, and on one of the control fundamentals and programs in particular, to be activated throughout the year.
During its campaign, the MOH will broadcast, via different media outlets and social networking websites, awareness messages comprising many activities meant to raise level of health awareness and knowledge and change wrong behaviors. This campaign, targeting all members of society in general and those people most vulnerable to the disease in particular, will contribute to raising the health awareness among healthy individuals in general, by means of guiding them to the correct scientific methods of prevention that must be followed to avoid HIV infection.
In the same time, the campaign aims at educating AIDS patients on how to live better with the disease among the society, in such a manner that ensures continuation of their lives. Besides, the campaign shows that since the beginning of 1984 until the end of 2014, the cumulative numbers of all detected AIDS cases amounted to 21,761 cases, including 6,334 Saudis and 15,427 non-Saudis. “1,222 new cases of AIDS were detected, of whom 444 Saudis (364 males and 80 females) and 778 non-Saudis (530 males and 248 females), bringing the accumulative number of the total detected cases among Saudis to 6,334 over the period from 1984 until the end of 2014,” states the campaign.
It is worth mentioning that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is among the countries of least incidence of AIDS. Furthermore, the Kingdom has made successful strides in terms of AIDS awareness and prevention, through various programs and activities, including intensifying survey programs, consultations, and examination to detect the infected cases so as to expand the therapeutic umbrella, in addition to upgrading the diagnostic and therapeutic capacities through the ongoing training and expansion of the consultation services associated with the therapeutic services. This aims at ensuring patients adherence to a medication and their resistance to the shame and discrimination associated with AIDS treatment, as well as working on providing the latest drugs, data, and disease-related information and behavioral data through follow-up programs.