500 kids infected with HIV. Quacks blamed.

QUACK TRACK

QT Staff

May 25, 2019

As of mid may, around 500 children were found to be infected with the deadly HIV virus in Larkana City, a city in Pakistan’s Sindh province according to a report from NPR and the Associated Press Limited. This is the second major outbreak in the province. The last one was in 2016 infected 1520 people, mostly men.

An investigation is on, to determine the cause of the outbreak and to see if it was due to contaminated injections, blood transfusions or any illegal medical practices. According to reports several children in the age group of 2 months to 8 years came down with lasting fever and were not responding to any form of treatment. Further tests revealed HIV as the cause. While the investigation is going the Health officials are of the opinion that rogue doctors and quacks are primarily responsible for the spread of HIV, Hepatitis etc mostly from using contaminated syringes. The Commissioner, Health Director -General directed health authorities to confiscate all the ordinary syringes from the pharmacies. Around 500 dubious clinics in the area have been ordered to shut down.

So far, more than 10,000 children and adults have been screened for the virus and 113 adults and 494 children were found to be infected with the deadly virus.

HIV is a common problem in this province. According to the UNAIDS, the province accounts for nearly 150,000 HIV positive cases in Pakistan.

There are an estimated 200,000 quacks practicing in the province of Sindh alone.

Last year the Dawn reported that there are over 600,000 quacks in Pakistan providing primary and basic healthcare to the poor in rural and urban areas of the country. They qualify themselves as physicians, and treat all kinds of minor ailments and also claim to specialize in cancer, liver and renal failure.

It is being suspected that HIV is spread through unqualified people using bad medical practices.

International agencies such as the WHO, UNAIDS, UNICEF have responded, and are closely working with the health officials and the Government of Sindh to run public education campaigns about preventing the spread of HIV, and to stop illegal medical practices.