New Light AIDS Control Society (NLACS) through support from the Provincial AIDS Control Program tested 246 people in a small town named Jalal Pur Jattan near Gujrat. This testing was done in 02 screening camps held on 27^th June and 1^st July where people were tested following VCT procedures.

These screening camps were organized as there were high numbers of HIV +ve people coming to the nearby VCT centre and/or presenting with peculiar symptoms. A total number of 246 people were screened through rapid HIV tests (see Fig 01 for treatment regiment) 88 out of the total screened showed a positive test for HIV on 03 successive rapid tests 74 out of these went for confirmation through ELISA, and all 74 samples tested positive for HIV.

While the program is looking for options to follow up these PLH for ARV and care and support, there is a need to investigate the reasons leading to this exceptionally high levels of HIV infection in a small community, where most of the PLH belong to general population.

Technical support from the Canada Pakistan HIV AIDS Surveillance project was requested by the PACP, and a formal investigation of this outbreak was conducted.

Meetings with the PACP and implementing NGO (NLACS) were conducted^[1]. The HASP team along with President of NLACS also visited the affected district to have further information on the epidemic from the local health authorities.

It was decided that HASP would start by reviewing the data already collected, and provide a report to the PACP. If the existing data does not lead to any conclusions, additional data can be collected by PACP and NLACS teams.

THE DATA SET

The data set provided to HASP was extracted from the VCT data which was collected at the time of screening, by the attending Psychologist. A basic analysis was done to answer some of the key questions which could provide a basic description of the epidemic.

Demographic Characteristics

The data set was available for a total number of 91 HIV positive persons. There were a total number of 53 females, 36 males and 2 Transgender.

                             sex

The average age was 35.8 yrs ± 14.5 yrs (median 38 yrs). The youngest HIV positive person was a child of nearly 2 yrs of age while the eldest person was of 62 yrs.