A group of Pakistani doctors is blaming an outbreak of HIV among children in a southern city on poor healthcare practices, such as using dirty needles and contaminated blood, a statement released yesterday said.
The doctors are also urging the Pakistani government to do more to understand how the virus went from high-risk groups, such as drug users and sex workers, to the general population.
They also warned that there is not enough medication in Ratodero, where 591 children need medical treatment.
The outbreak is extremely worrying, the doctors said, calling it “one of the worst” in Pakistan.
They studied the medical data of 31,239 people in Ratodero, where the HIV outbreak took place and who agreed to the study.
Out of that group, 930 tested positive for HIV, with 604 of them being younger than five years and 763 younger than 16 years, according to the study published in the Lancet Infectious Disease Journal.
By the end of July when the study was being completed, only one in three children had started antiretroviral treatment “due to an inadequate supply of drugs and a lack of trained staff,” the statement said.
The study said that 50 of the children examined were showing signs of “severe immunodeficiency,” but it did not specify if they had AIDS.
“The results, which are the first scientific report on the outbreak, appear to confirm observations ... that HIV was mostly transmitted to children as a result of healthcare providers using contaminated needles and blood products,” the statement said.
“Pakistan has experienced a series of HIV outbreaks over the past two decades, but we’ve never before seen this many young children infected or so many health facilities involved,” said Fatima Mir of The Aga Khan University in Karachi, one of the authors of the study.
About 70 percent of Pakistan’s 220 million people use the private healthcare sector, which is mostly unregulated, and rarely monitored for cleanliness and safety.
Among many Pakistanis, popular belief holds that intravenous or intramuscular injections are more effective than medicine taken by mouth, which has increased the use of syringes across the nation — and the likelihood of dirty needles being used.
In the immediate aftermath of the HIV outbreak in Ratodero, the government did act quickly — closing three blood banks, as well as 300 clinics run by untrained medical staff — the statement said.
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