AIDS AWARENESS IN BLOOD-DONORS IN NORTH-INDIA

Prevention of AIDS can only be achieved by a successful public awarene ss programme. This study was carried out to establish the level of awa reness of AIDS and HIV infection through blood transfusion among India n blood donors of various socioeconomic groups. A questionnaire consis ting of 20 questions pertaining to various aspects of AIDS and HIV inf ection was circulated to 1012 voluntary blood donors. The responses we re categorized as good, average and poor knowledge according to the nu mber of correct responses. The majority of the donors were males (93.5 %), married (69.7%) and belonged to the Hindu community. Of the donors , 44.4% were educated, 49.9% were highly educated and 5.8% were illite rate. Overall, only 205 (20.3%) showed good awareness of AIDS and the majority of these 168 (16.6%) were highly educated. Approximately 80% of our population did not have sufficient knowledge about AIDS or the danger of contracting as well as disseminating this disease in the com munity. One hundred and ninety-one (18.9%) donors were in the higher i ncome group and only 13 of them showed good awareness. Most of the don ors, 384 (38.0%), were government white collar workers and belonged to the middle income group. In this group 154 had good awareness. The ma jority of donors with good awareness (176 out of 205) preferred to rec eive HIVtested banked blood or blood from their own relatives during e mergencies. None of the blood donors had any knowledge of autologous b lood donations. This study showed that awareness of AIDS was not satis factory in Indian society. More intensive public awareness campaigns b y the Government with the help of Non-Governmental Organizations is re quired in India to prevent an explosive AIDS situation in the near fut ure.