HIV infection is entirely preventable through awareness raising. Therefore, awareness raising about its occurrence and spread is very significant in protecting the people from the epidemic. It is for this reason that the National AIDS Control Programme lays maximum emphasis on the widespread reach of information, education and communication on HIV/AIDS prevention. Changing knowledge, attitudes and behaviour as a prevention strategy of HIV/AIDS thus is a key thrust area of the National AIDS Control Programme.

Addressing the Vulnerable

Awareness raising brings behaviour change. Through this route the programme promotes prevention, and aims to reach out to 80 percent of the high risk groups and 95 percent of the young people. In fact, the awareness campaign of NACP has received a big boost with the formation of National Council on AIDS that has mainstreamed HIV prevention activities in various government institutions and programmes.

The programme focuses on saturating an estimated four million high risk groups (commercial sex workers, injecting drug users, men-who-have-sex-with-men), twelve million highly vulnerable populations – migrants and truckers, and a large number of young women and men in the general community, who constitute almost 40 percent of the country’s population, with information on various aspects of vulnerability to HIV infection.