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Adverts soon to urge high-risk group to test for Aids
ADVERTISEMENTS aimed at getting people who are most at risk of contracting Aids to go for medical screening are likely to appear in newspapers and magazines soon.
The Health Ministry has asked advertising agencies to submit proposals for such advertisements - the first time it will use this approach in its effort to stem the spread of the disease which has claimed four lives in Singapore.
The last press statement, on Dec 28, on the latest victim, also revealed then that there were 15 carriers here.
The target group, which includes intravenous drug users, prostitutes and homosexuals, will be told through advertisements placed in newspapers and magazines, that they can undergo tests at seven places.
These are Middle Road Hospital, the Ang Mo Kio, Bedok Bukit Merah and Clementi polyclinics, and the Kelantan Road and Maxwell Road outpatient dispensaries, according to tender notices sent to advertising agencies.
The advertisements, to be in English, Chinese and Malay, are expected to carry the message "Aids is incurable, infectious but preventable".
While Malaysia's TV3 and RTM have been using television to create public awareness of the danger of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the Health Ministry here made no mention of the broadcast media in its invitation to agencies.
It suggested in its tender notice that the advertisements be inserted in the Sunday Times, Business Times, Shin Min Daily News, Berita Harian, Lian he Zaobao and Lianhe Wanbao newspapers and such magazines as Go, HER World, Female, Our Home and Radio & TV Times.
A spokesman for the Health Ministry here said they have no plans for such television announcements on Aids.
A spokesman for the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation said the station has however shown a number of foreign documentaries and films on the subject since April 1985. And more can be expected.
SBC has also featured Aids in three of its Friday Background and Focus 30 programmes, she added.
The print advertisements are expected to appear soon and continue for two months. The deadline for tenders was the end of last month.
A Sunday Times check showed that at least three agencies have responded with proposals.
The ministry would only confirm that it had called for tenders.
This revelation comes in the wake of a Sunday Times report that the ministry had also lifted a longstanding restriction on condom advertisements. They will be allowed to appear in newspapers, magazines, cinemas and on radio and television. According to medical authorities, the use of condoms can minimise the spread of the Aids virus.
Britain, West Germany, France, Australia and the United States are just some at the countries which have already used the print, as well as broadcast media, to alert their people to the disease.
Other actions taken by the authorities here include the distribution of 130,000 leaflets containing information on Aids to schoolchildren. A 13-page book let on the same topic was made available to the general public.
Consciousness about the problem was also heightened by a National Aids Workshop organised by the Singapore Medical Association with the Health Ministry's support last October for about 900 nurses doctors, laboratory technicians and other health care workers.
An Aids task force and a National Advisory Committee on Aids have also been set up. The first comprises 11 government doctors and will do such things as collate the latest information on new tests and drugs used in treating victims.
The second which has representatives from the government, newspapers, SBC, Singapore Medical Association, Singapore Hotel Association, the Airlines Club of Singapore and Singapore Airlines, will come up with a comprehensive programme to inform Singaporeans of the dangers of Aids and how it can be avoided.
There is also a Ministry of Health Aids hotline which people can call for information on the disease.
The number is 330-8233 (English) and 330-8218 (Mandarin).
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This article was written by Roy Tan.