Aghaz-e-Nau

BCC is an integral component of a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support program. It has a number of different but interrelated roles. Effective BCC can: Increase knowledge. BCC can ensure that people are given the basic facts about HIV and AIDS in a language or visual medium (or any other medium that they can understand and relate to). Stimulate community dialogue. BCC can encourage community and national discussions on the basic facts of HIV/AIDS and the underlying factors that contribute to the epidemic, such as risk behaviors and risk settings, environments and cultural practices related to sex and sexuality, and marginalized practices (such as drug use) that create these conditions. It can also stimulate discussion of healthcare-seeking behaviors for prevention, care and support. Promote essential attitude change. BCC can lead to appropriate attitudinal changes about, for example, perceived personal risk of HIV infection, belief in the right to and respo

I   Introduction Thirty percent of new global HIV infections now occur outside sub-Saharan Africa (which alone is home to almost 64% of all HIV infections), and of these, 30% now involve People Who Inject Drugs (PWID). This means that the sharing of injection equipment currently accounts for approximately one in every 10 new HIV infections in the world. HIV spreading among PWID has led to generalized epidemics in at least half a dozen countries. In some countries, HIV epidemics appear to have started with PWID sharing injecting equipment in prison. There are now an estimated 13 million PWID worldwide. Many spend several years of their period as PWID in prison. Injection drug use has been reported in 144 countries worldwide, among which 128 have detected HIV among PWID. Most HIV transmission among PWID involves the shared use of needles and syringes although other forms of injecting equipment, such as spoons and tourniquets, also make a contribution. As HIV prevalence in this po