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Rato Dero: Days after it was found that a doctor in Pakistan was using contaminated syringes, more than 400 children and 100 adults tested positive for HIV. Following the shocking developments, the doctor, Muzaffar Ghangharo was arrested and authorities say that they are looking into whether he intentionally infected the people with the disease.
Head of the Aids control programme in the Sindh province of Pakistan, Sikandar Memon said that officials screened 13,800 people from Larkana of whom, 410 children and 100 adults tested positive for HIV.
The doctor, who is also said to have AIDS, infected the patients early in April.
Many of the parents of the children who were affected are furious with the doctor and fear that their children’s futures have been damaged beyond repair after contracting HIV. Many of the country’s rural poor have limited knowledge of the disease and have little access to treatment.
On many of the parents’ minds are the questions, “who will play with them?”, “who will marry them when they are older?”
Pakistan’s health ministry has registered more than 23,000 HIV cases across the nation. The health officials attribute the spread of HIV to the use of unsterilised syringes.
