A pediatrician in Sindh province, southern Pakistan, is suspected of inoculating more than 437 children with the AIDS virus using a contaminated syringe. Himself HIV-positive, he has since been arrested by the authorities.
Is this serious health negligence or an intentional malicious act? For the moment, the mystery remains for the families of the victims of this pediatrician from Ratodero, a small Pakistani town located in the district of Larkana, in the province of Sindh, in the south of the country.
Revealed by Reuters and AFP and relayed by The Guardian, this case is chilling: the doctor is indeed accused of having contaminated hundreds of children with the AIDS virus by repeatedly using a contaminated syringe. To date, district doctors have identified more than 500 infected people, including at least 437 children.
“60% are children (concerned, editor’s note) under the age of 5”, specifies to the Guardian Sikandar Memon, who manages the anti-AIDS program for the province.
Serious sanitary failures
It all started a few months ago when the parents of 16-month-old Fatima Emaan were worried about their daughter’s persistent fever. Her father then takes her to Dr. Muzaffar Ghangharo, a pediatrician in Ratodero, who treats her.
But against all expectations, the girl’s state of health worsens. In March, the result is confirmed: Fatima is affected by HIV. According to her father, Syed Shah, Fatima is the first child to be diagnosed with the AIDS virus.
Since then, hundreds of families have been affected. On Friday, May 17, they were anxiously waiting for their children to take a screening test in a specially set up analysis center in the town of Wasayo. Up to 1,000 people a day are tested.
VIDEO: Hundreds of people in a village in southern Pakistan have allegedly been infected with HIV by a doctor using a contaminated syringe.
Health officials say more than 400 people, many of them children, have tested HIV positive in recent weeks https://t.co/HYy0bfzxWF pic.twitter.com/tu8VTldAW8
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 16, 2019
For Dr Imran Akbar, the doctor who first diagnosed Fatima, “these cases are just the tip of the iceberg”. Sindh, but the authorities did not give any information about this deadly disease, neither to the public nor to the doctors on the safety measures to be taken. According to him, most doctors have not been trained and regularly reuse syringes.
For their part, the police arrested the pediatrician and are currently investigating whether the hundreds of contaminations of which he is the author were made intentionally or not. Himself HIV-positive, the doctor is currently accused by at least 10 families of having used used syringes. Imprisoned in a ramshackle cell in the town of Ratodero, he denies knowingly inoculating patients with the virus. His case will be presented in court on May 21.
20,000 new contaminations each year
Long considered a country where HIV prevalence was low, Pakistan has faced a considerable increase in infections in recent years, particularly among drug addicts and sex workers.
“To save money, charlatans are injecting several patients with a single syringe. This could be the main cause of the multiplication of cases,” said Sikandar Memon.
In 2017 alone, Pakistan registered 20,000 new HIV cases, making it the second country in Asia with the fastest rate of HIV spread. This is a serious health problem in this country which lacks medical infrastructure and in which the populations lack access to care and are particularly vulnerable to questionable medical practices by doctors. “According to some government data, around 600,000 charlatans are active in the country and around 270,000 practice in Sindh province,” UNAIDS said in a statement.
For her part, little Fatima is now hospitalized in Karachi, the country’s capital. Supported by a team specializing in HIV, she saw her condition stabilize. “After being admitted there for a month, she is better now,” her father said.
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