Thursday, January 6 2005 17:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Voicing serious concern over the mounting HIV positive cases in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (Jan 6, 2005) said the pandemic should be dealt with firmness and urgency as it could hit the country's growth very severely if not checked.

"We have no choice but to act and act with firmness, with urgency and with utmost seriousness," he said chairing a Media Summit in New Delhi on HIV/AIDS.

From one reported case in 1986, the number of HIV positive cases in India has already crossed the five million mark, the Prime Minister said, adding it was no longer just a public health issue but it had become a serious socio-economic and development concern.

"If not checked, it can hurt our ambitions in economic growth and development very severely," he said.

Assuring the participants that the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government was committed to substantially strengthening the national AIDS control efforts, he said different Ministries had joined hands to evolve a National Action Plan for spreading awareness and improving access to services related to HIV/AIDs.

To push this effort forward, the Government has constituted National Council on AIDS headed by him to pay greater attention to the campaign against AIDS, he said.

The meeting was attended by Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy and Health Minister A Ramadoss.

Singh said while focussing on research for finding a vaccine for this pandemic, "We must leave no stone unturned in preventing its occurrence by using media in an intelligent and creative manner".

"In the absence of a vaccine, the social vaccine of education and awareness is the only preventive tool we have," he said, adding, "It is appropriately said that prevention begins with information. Media which conveys information and moulds public opinion must remain at the heart of our campaign to help people make informed choices."

Stressing that there were many misconceptions about AIDS that needed to be dispelled, Singh said half information "is often more dangerous than no information" and urged the media leaders to invest in educating their own staff so that they are able to purvey correct information to the public.

Describing the summit as "an important milestone" in the fight against the AIDS pandemic, the Prime Minister said that the world had come to recognise this as a global threat to humanity.

"However, like so many other such threats that mankind has battled, I am confident that we shall overcome this one too but it will require massive efforts on the part of the Government, media and all actors in civil society," Singh said.

"We are meeting here today to help ensure that AIDS awareness becomes an integral part of mainstream media and that it is able to reach out to the people through its tremendous creative and communicating power," he said.