The Central Asian news website Ferghana.ru, said nearly 150 children in eastern Uzbekistan were infected with HIV in 2007-2008 through doctors' negligence.
The Central Asian news website Ferghana.ru, said nearly 150 children in eastern Uzbekistan were infected with HIV in 2007-2008 through doctors' negligence.
"Due to doctors' negligence 147 children in Namangan and Namangan region alone were infected with HIV, including 20 in regional hospitals," the website quoted a state television documentary as saying."By January 2009, when an investigation was complete and its findings made its way to court, 14 of those children were dead," the website said.
Twelve medical staff from Namangan and nine from regional hospitals were sentenced to five to eight years in jail over the issue, it said.
"The mass outbreak was due to using catheters and syringes many times without sterilization, falsification of sterilization notifications and destruction of proper documents," the report said.
Official statistics list nearly 13,000 HIV cases in Uzbekistan by 2009, Ferghana.ru noted, warning that AIDS could spread in the poverty-stricken Central Asian state.
Source-AFP
TRI