HIV/AIDS situation in Bangladesh

Abdullah Al Maruf (Senior Lecturer, Department of Pharmacy, East West University) completed Bachelor of Pharmacy and Master of Pharmacy from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Mr. Maruf is currently doing his Ph.D. on Toxicology in University of Toronto, Canada under prestigious Connaught Scholarship.

We investigated the knowledge and perception about HIV/AIDS among the University students of Dhaka city in Bangladesh. A total number of 162 respondents participated in the study. Data were collected prospectively from different public and private Universities of Dhaka city in Bangladesh. The study showed that every respondent heard about HIV/AIDS and their main source of knowledge about HIV/AIDS was from media (72%). Among the respondents, 64% regularly donated blood and few of them (38%) were careful during blood donation. 95% of the respondents (who were drug abusers) did not share injections or needles for taking drugs of abuse. 97% of the respondents did not exchanged sex for drugs or money; however, 25% had physical relation with their sex partners and among them, only 24% used condoms while 57% knew about the use of condom. Only 27% of the respondents knew about HIV test centers. 90% thought that HIV/AIDS education will increase awareness about HIV/AIDS. 35% of the respondents were familiar with condom vendor machines and 28% of the respondents did not support for condom vendor machines to be installed in public places in Bangladesh.