UZBEKISTAN: Hospital workers jailed over child HIV infections

Record ID: 402270

  • Title: UZBEKISTAN: Hospital workers jailed over child HIV infections
  • Date: 2nd April 2010
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (RECENT) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) COMPUTER SHOWING NEWS WEBSITE FERGHANA.RU
  • Embargoed: 17th April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Uzbekistan
  • Country: Uzbekistan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVADRR96KZ4D0R36735U49J5UWA9
  • Story Text: Nearly 150 children were infected with HIV in hospitals in eastern Uzbekistan and 12 medical staff have been sentenced to jail terms of five to eight years for negligence, a news website said.
    In a documentary posted on the news portal Ferghana.ru a regional prosecutor said at least 14 children have died out of 147 who were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the eastern city of Namangan in 2007-08.
    The editor of Ferghana.ru, Uzbekistan-born Danil Kislov, said the footage was from a documentary made earlier this year for state television, but was never broadcast in the tightly controlled Central Asian nation.
    "This film is about the fate of more than one hundred children who got infected in hospital and about the doctors who allowed such a crime to happen, and of course not only the doctors are guilty, but the whole system which obviously already for a long time needs a fundamental change. The Uzbek medical care is in an awful state," said Kislov.
    In the film regional prosecutor Bakhtier Shodmonov blames the infections of the children on the negligence of medical staff.
    "The main reason for this situation, is that the main doctors and their deputies and the chief nurses did not perform their work with full responsibility, sanitary rules were not observed and they did not take any anti-epidemiological measures, the staff were negligent in their duties. Today of 147 children, 14 are no longer alive," Shodmonov said.
    The infections were caused by unsterilised syringes and intravenous drips, relatives of the victims said in the film.
    Kislov said the scandal in Namangan was typical for many towns in Uzbekistan.
    "Today in the hospitals of Namangan, Andjizhan and other towns in the Ferghana valley, in that part of Uzbekistan, the picture is the same, there is a total neglect and disregard for medical rules. This is caused by a lack of money, medicines and necessary medical equipment," he added.
    The media office of the prosecutor general's office was not available for comment, and a health ministry official declined to comment.
    In 2008 a court in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan sentenced three doctors to three-year jail terms for negligence that led to 24 children being infected with HIV.
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