About 1.7 million young people in Africa are infected with HIV every year.

Close to 700,000 young people are infected with HIV every year in the Asia-Pacific region.

Of the approximate 79,000 HIV-positive patients in the country, 1304 are in Gujarat state. In Surat, the only city in the State to have a full-fledged red-light area, the situation was alarming, according to doctors.

Eighteen per cent of the city's commercial sex workers were found to be HIV-positive in 1992 in a study conducted by Dr J K Kosambiya of Preventive Social Medicine Department of the medical college. The number can only have multiplied in the intervening six years.

Though awareness has unarguably increased ever since December 1 came to be observed as World AIDS Day, so has the spread of the disease, especially among the young, says Dr Kosambiya. Incidentally, the theme of the 1998 World AIDS Day is `Force of Change -- World AIDs: Campaigning with Youth'.

Even some doctors were ignorant of the disease, says Dr Pritu Dhalaria of the Civil Hospital. ``A study conducted six months ago showed that even graduate doctors know little about AIDS'', he says.

``The basic aim of my study was to determine how much young doctors, who would soon be treating the disease, knew about AIDS. A questionnaire was distributed among 250 post-graduate students; 40 per cent of them said AIDS patients should be sacked from their jobs'', says Dr Dhalaria.

Maintaining that infrastructure and screening facilities were not a constraint in the civil hospital, Dhalaria says what was necessary was a change in the medical and public attitude towards AIDS patients. ``There should be regular seminars and training sessions to familiarise the medical fraternity about the clinical symptoms of the disease'', he adds.

Apart from running a counselling centre for HIV patients, the department of Preventive Social Medicine in collaboration with the departments of Medicine, Skin and VD, and Gynaecology are working on a British Council-funded project titled `Intervention in Sexual Health'.

The Department of Preventive Social Medicine is mainly involved with documenting, counselling and training doctors, the general public and commercial sex workers, while the other departments are looking after clinical treatment aspect of HIV patients.

In keeping with the theme of World AIDS DAY, a slide show was organised for college students at the Gandhi Smruti Bhavan. Earlier,in the morning, NSS students of various colleges, members of Sahas and Navsarjan -- two non-governmental organisations -- took out a rally from Sardar Statue at Railway station to Old Civil hospital, Chowk Bazaar.

Among those who joined the rally were Deputy Commissioner (health and hospital) I C Patel, District Collector R M Shah and South Gujarat University acting Vice-Chancellor Rohit Shelati.