KAZAKHSTAN: Kazakh court case highlights HIV problem in Central Asia's largest nation

Record ID: 402682

  • Title: KAZAKHSTAN: Kazakh court case highlights HIV problem in Central Asia's largest nation
  • Date: 25th June 2007
  • Summary: EXTERIOR/ DEFENCE LAWYER ENTERING HIS OFFICE
  • Embargoed: 10th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kazakhstan
  • Country: Kazakhstan
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVADH12C9A8H2Y2N0AZLO9UK44VD
  • Story Text: A court in the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent is due to give a verdict in a trial of 21 doctors and medical staff accused of using HIV contaminated blood in the treatment of patients, most of them children.
    Eight babies have died as a result, and the number of infected children is rising. Kazakh media reports, citing regional health officials, say some 118 children, and 14 mothers have been confirmed as HIV-positive, following blood transfusions carried out, mostly at one hospital in Shymkent.
    The medical staff on trial deny charges of negligence and malpractice, in what has become Kazakhstan's worst health medical scandal, serving to highlight lack of awareness about HIV/AIDS, and problems with the country's healthcare system.
    Prosecutors claim the infections were caused when doctors who took cash payments to speed up medical treatment of patients. They allege medical staff, instead of using official blood banks, told families of patients to buy blood needed for treatment from other donors.
    One of the lawyer's defending the doctors said he believed his clients were innocent.
    "The prosecution has failed to prove that those accused had any deliberate link with the infection of the children and to this day I believe that they are innocent," said defence lawyer Nikolai Keller.
    The court in Shymkent is expected to give its ruling in the case on Tuesday (June 26).
    Some of the children infected with HIV are being treated at an infectious diseases clinic in Shymkent. They receive round the clock care, which is a must in such cases. But staff at the clinic say the majority of the children infected live in countryside villages, where they do not get the necessary medical care.
    "These children, 70 percent of them, live in remote countryside areas. The main problem there in terms of care (for the infected children) is the fact that the mothers in these areas are busy working, so they don't have enough time for the children. The children on therapy need a strict regime, they need to be looked after and fed well, but their mothers don't have the time for this," said psychologist Ulbasyn Abdraiyenova.
    Campaigners have criticised Kazakhstan, with its vast oil export revenues, for not doing enough to reconstruct its crumbling public health system, root out corruption, and raise HIV/ AIDS awareness.
    In Shymkent, as in other parts of Kazakhstan, the local government says it is doing all it can to help those with HIV. The health minister and the region's governor were sacked in September. Most HIV patients get free antiretroviral drugs, while blood donation procedures have been tightened up at blood banks in the city.
    A new governor for Shymkent, Omyrzak Shukeyev, has vowed to give affected families more help. He ordered health officials to be tested on their medical knowledge to help eradicate incompetence. He promised to root out discrimination.
    The U.N. children's fund, which has worked in Kazakhstan since 1995, believes the number of people living with HIV could be three times higher than the official total of about 7,000.
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