Kurali (Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar), November 28: Under the intensive AIDS awareness and screening campaign launched by the Health and Family Welfare Department, students were made aware about AIDS at Chakwal National Senior Secondary School in Kurali.
Poonam Sharma, Manager of the Complete Security Center in the District Hospital Mohali, said that the awareness campaign has been launched by the Punjab AIDS Control Society under the Health Department. She said that the aim of the campaign is to make people aware about the symptoms, causes, prevention and treatment of the deadly disease AIDS.
She said that in the awareness program organized on the instructions of Senior Medical Officer Dr. HS Cheema, the students were told that AIDS is a terrible disease caused by a virus called HIV. Its initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, muscle tension, joint pain, headache, cold, dry cough, marks on the face, etc.
The main reasons for its spread include sharing needles and syringes, transfusion of blood of an HIV infected person into the body of a healthy person, having unprotected sexual intercourse etc.
He also said that AIDS cannot be transmitted by touching an AIDS victim, shaking hands, eating food from his used utensils. All these are wrong beliefs. He said that awareness and precautions are necessary to prevent AIDS. He said that AIDS testing is absolutely free in every government health institution. School principals Dharmendra Joshi, Navpreet and Manpreet were present on this occasion.