Shocking Rise of kids contracting HIV/AIDS in Kazakhstan
Pastor Dale Morgan
Shocking Rise of kids contracting HIV/AIDS in Kazakhstan*
ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) — The number of children who contracted HIV in
southern Kazakhstan in an outbreak blamed on doctors' negligence has
reached 96, health authorities said Thursday.
The two most recent victims, aged 3 and 4, were diagnosed with HIV in
the Sairam district and the city of Turkestan respectively, said
regional health department spokeswoman Ayzhan Umarova.
The Central Asian nation has been shocked after scores of children and
13 mothers contracted HIV through injections or blood transfusions at
hospitals in the city of Shymkent, some 1,000 miles south of the
capital, Astana.
Eight children who contracted AIDS in the case have died.
Authorities have been testing thousands of mothers and children feared
to be at risk of contracting HIV.
Nationwide inspections have revealed numerous cases of incompetence and
corruption among doctors and nurses.
Twenty-one doctors and health officials accused of causing the outbreak
went on trial in Shymkent in January.
Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, HIV/AIDS has swept across
the former Communist countries. According to the United Nations, there
were 1.6 million people living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central
Asia in 2005, a more-than twentyfold increase in less than a decade.
Most of the people with HIV in the region are in Russia and Ukraine, but
the situation has also worsened in Central Asia.
According to the World Bank, the number of HIV/AIDS patients in
Kazakhstan has been doubling annually since 2000, and UNICEF estimates
that the true number of people with HIV is three times higher than what
it says is the official figure of about 7,000.