To bring awareness among people on HIV/AIDS, the Red Ribbon Express- II, which is an anti-AIDS campaign on wheels, demonstrated many documentaries, photos and stories of virus-infected families at the Secunderabad railway station on 15th April.
There was a tremendous response to Red Ribbon Express (RRE). Every visitor who visited the train seemed loaded with the information and knowledge gained regarding the disease. The Red Ribbon Express inaugurated its journey in the State from Chittoor on April 5 and came across Anantapur and Kurnool districts before arriving at Secunderabad. It will remain in Secunderabad for two days.
The extra feature in RRE-II was the facility to do HIV tests and counseling for visitors. The train had nearly 45,000 visitors till date in which half of them are women. Nearly 1,700 had gone through the HIV test. Nearly 6,000 visited it on the first day in Secunderabad.
Illiterate and semi-literate groups such as daily wage workers, railway workers and porters were mobilized to visit the train and gain first-hand knowledge on HIV/AIDS.
India has 20 lakh people affected with HIV/AIDS and AP contributes for about five lakh people. Many programmes and services have been started, like the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART), to help them in leading a quality and longer life.