He said authorities were quick to react at the time, but that discipline has since slipped. “Things are as bad as they were at the time of the outbreak,” said whistle-blower Imran Akbar Arbani, who called malpractice in the country “ruthless”.Īrbani took his data on the outbreak to local media after discovering an alarming number of babies with HIV in Rato Dero, where he has a private clinic. The doctor who first exposed Sindh’s dirty needle scandal says little has changed since 2019. He denies the charges laid against him, saying other doctors have pinned the outbreak on him because of his successful practice. Muzaffar Ghangro is currently out on bail, with court hearings repeatedly pushed back, much to the anger of many families. Mir said she had expected the number to be higher given the malnutrition and poverty among families in the area.Īuthorities blamed a single physician – a popular child specialist in Rato Dero – for causing the outbreak. Pakistan’s public hospitals, located largely in cities, are often chaotic and inefficient, leaving rural families to rely on private clinics they can seldom afford that are often stuffed with unlicensed doctors.Īt least 50 children have died since they were diagnosed, said paediatric specialist Fatima Mir, from Aga Khan University in Karachi, who has analysed the data. “They tell us to go for further tests in private hospitals, but we don’t have sufficient money,” Shar told the AFP news agency, describing how his son continues to suffer from regular fever, abdominal and kidney pain.Ībout 30 other children are also HIV positive in their small village of Subhani Shar, just a few kilometres from Rato Dero. Pakistan’s largest HIV testing and treatment centre was established in the rural town of Rota Dero in the wake of the disaster, dishing out life-saving antiretroviral drugs.īut affected families must cover further costs arising from the illness themselves. The number of patients quickly swelled and two years later, the figure stands at more than 1,500, according to data from the provincial health ministry. His five-year-old was one of the hundreds who tested positive in 2019 after a whistle-blower doctor uncovered a scandal involving the reuse of needles in southern Sindh province. Since his son was diagnosed with HIV during a mass outbreak among babies and children in Pakistan, Shahzado Shar has often been forced to choose between food and medicine.

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