Children still paying the price in Pakistan's 2019 mass HIV outbreak after a whistleblower doctor discovered the re-use of needles
In this picture taken on March 25, 2021, a father carries his HIV positive child after visiting a doctor at an HIV treatment support centre in Rato Dero, in southern Sindh province.
Pakistan's largest HIV testing and treatment centre was established in the rural town of Rota Dero in the wake of the disaster, dishing out life-saving anti-retroviral drugs."They tell us to go for further tests in private hospitals, but we don't have sufficient money," says Shahzado Shar, whose five-year-old son was one of hundreds who tested positive in 2019.
Authorities blamed a single physician – a popular child specialist in Rato Dero – for causing the outbreak. Arbani took his data on the outbreak to local media after discovering an alarming number of babies with HIV in Rato Dero, where he has a private clinic."In the first three months, quacks and unauthorised medical practitioners were banned and their clinics were sealed, but they obtained clearance later on," he said.
In the wake of the scandal, the government banned the import of conventional syringes, insisting only on single-use auto-lock needles which cannot be re-deployed. But Pakistan now has to go beyond the vital antiretrovirals and offer more rounded care to patients, Ayesha Isani Majeed, the head of the government's National AIDS Control Programme, told AFP.
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