After Larkana, Faisalabad faces HIV crisis; 2,800 cases registered

FAISALABAD: After the continuing Larkana HIV ordeal, Faisalabad has reported a sudden and quick increase in the HIV positive cases being registered. Currently more than 2,800 such patients from Faisalabad and 5 other districts of Punjab, including Chiniot, Sahiwal, Jhang, and Nankana Sahib, are registered with the Punjab AIDS Control Programme (PACP) for free medicines.

According to PACP sources, the programme’s Faisalabad unit set up in a room at the Allied Hospital that provides free medicines to the HIV/AIDS patients registered with it, receives 70 to 90 cases of the ailment monthly from these five districts.

They say that most of these patients come to know about their condition through screening tests conducted before donating blood, travelling abroad or undergoing a surgery.

It is worrying that in spite of such a high incidence of HIV-positive persons in these areas, the provincial government as well as the district administrations have preferred to hush up the issue to avoid criticism as opposed to organising any screening camps to learn about and address the unfortunate incident.

The sources said that since the surfacing of a large number of HIV/AIDS cases in Ratto Dero taaulqa of Larkana district, Sindh, earned a bad name for the province’s government, the authorities concerned in Punjab were not highlighting the issue to save their skin.

They said that the concerned PACP staff had strictly been warned against leaking any information with regard to the high incidence of the disease here.

Meanwhile, The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), expressing its serious concern over the situation, severely criticised the district administrations for their failure to check the menace of quackery in their respective areas which, it termed a major source of HIV/AIDS spread.

Discussing the issue during a meeting held here on Monday night with Dr Saulat Nawaz in the chair, the members of PMA also accused the Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) of condoning quackery.

They alleged that the so-called anti-quackery operations launched from time to time were just a source of increasing the monthly bribe of the officials concerned.

The sources pointed out that the practice of refusing surgeries to HIV/AIDS patients by the public hospitals was also a cause of the disease’s spread. Such patients then had no option but to approach private hospitals where they undergo the knife without blood screening, they added. This resulted in spread of the virus to other patients who undergo surgeries at the private hospitals through poorly manged surgical instruments.

They said the quacks, especially fake dentists, also spread the virus by using instruments that were not sterilised.

The PMA Faisalabad chapter secretary Dr Mohammad Irfan who is also working as an assistant professor of medicine at the Allied Hospital, said the World Health Organization (WHO) had warned Pakistan that it was registering approximately 20,000 new HIV/AIDS cases annually, the highest rate in the region.

He said the quacks, coupled with sex workers and transgenders, were also contributing to disease spread. He regretted that quacks were running private hospitals and the district administration was taking no action against them.

A message was also sent to the provincial minister for health, Dr Yasmin Rashid, but she did not reply.

“I will contact the head of the PACP in Faisalabad Dr Nazia and ask her to submit a report on the issue,” he said.