really scary

[space otter]

stories of doctors or nurses offing old folks is bad enough but this is really scary imo
i'm sorry but i have no trust in the ama at all and if you don't think it can happen here..think again

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/nearly-500-children-have-been-infected-with-hiv-in-a-single-pakistani-city-heres-what-to-know/ar-AABNyLh?li=BBnbfcL

Nearly 500 Children Have Been Infected With HIV in a Single Pakistani City. Here's What to Know
Jamie Ducharme  2 hrs ago

Nearly 500 children in a single Pakistani city have tested positive for HIV, in an outbreak that has led to the arrest and release of at least one doctor and highlighted gross inadequacies in the local health care system.

As of mid-May, 410 children and 100 adults in Larkana, a city in Pakistan's Sindh province, had tested positive for HIV, the Associated Press reported. Those numbers have since climbed to 494 children and 113 adults, according to NPR.

How did more than 600 people in one area become infected with HIV? Here's what to know.

When did the outbreak start?
According to reports from NPR and the AP, parents in April began to notice lasting fevers in their children and took them to a nearby medical center for testing. By around April 24, 15 children ages 2 to 8 had tested positive for HIV, according to an op-ed written by Larkana Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Nauman Siddique. "Recognising the seriousness of this issue," local officials shortly thereafter set up a "healthcare camp" where children and their parents could be screened for the virus, Siddique wrote.

"The results of the screening within the first few days were shocking,"
he wrote. "The tests revealed that the parents of the HIV-positive children were HIV negative"—raising questions about how so many children became infected.

By May 14, after screening more than 10,000 people, the number of diagnosed individuals had grown to more than 400, according to the country's National AIDS Control Programme. As testing continued, that number only grew.

How did so many people get infected with HIV?
A web of unsanitary and unsafe medical practices seems to be to blame, according to local officials.

Many of the children who originally tested positive for HIV had been treated in a Larkana clinic run by Dr. Muzaffar Ghangharo, NPR reports. After demands from parents, Ghangharo was eventually tested for HIV. The results came back positive, "and here is when it was suspected that he was the source of spreading HIV in their kids
suspected that he was the source of spreading HIV in their kids through bad practices," a district police officer told NPR.

Ghangharo was arrested on suspicion of intentionally infecting his patients with HIV, the BBC reports. Pakistan's SAMAA TV reported Thursday that he was cleared of that charge, but found guilty of "criminal medical negligence." Ghangharo denied the original accusations in a video filmed in jail.

Officials have pointed to medical negligence across the local health care system as a likely cause of the outbreak. Many local officials have blamed "quacks," in apparent reference to the large number of unqualified individuals who practice medicine in the area.

"Possible causes included clinics run by quacks, use of a single syringe for multiple patients, and use of the same drip set for multiple patients," Siddique wrote in his op-ed. He added that at least 61 unsafe clinics have been "sealed" and 29 more health care centers warned in the wake of the outbreak.

Sindh health officials also suggested that barbershops, where razor blades are sometimes reused, could be a possible transmission source, NPR reports. Siddique also pointed to unsafe circumcisions, which sometimes take place in barbershops, in his op-ed.

This is not the first time Larkana's medical system has been at the center of an HIV outbreak. An outbreak among dialysis patients, which infected about 50 people, was reported in 2016. Years earlier, there was also an outbreak among intravenous drug users in Larkana.

What's being done about the Larkana HIV outbreak?
National and international health authorities, including the World Health Organization, UNAIDS and UNICEF, are collaborating on a response in Larkana, which includes ongoing free testing of individuals who may be infected, crackdowns on unsafe clinics and barbershops and public education campaigns about preventing the spread of HIV. Siddique has also urged medical professionals to use auto-lock syringes, which cannot be reused, and called for better labs for conducting medical blood work.

Pakistan Health Minister Dr. Zafar Mirza also announced on May 23 that three new HIV/AIDs treatment centers would be established throughout Sindh.

[zorgon]

India's Sanitary Conditions?

Hmmm





Public Toilets (they even made a movie about the problem)


https://theconversation.com/indias-ambitious-plans-to-achieve-sanitation-for-all-must-look-beyond-building-individual-toilets-82527

Sanitation workers in India's caste system are "untouchables" the lowest of the low

Attitudes to gender and caste
India has to be careful so that the project does not interfere with its efforts to boost gender equality. Historically, campaigns pushing for more toilets to be built often cite the modesty of women as the main reason – toilets after all prevent women from exposing themselves in public.

This is also problematic as it places the burden of adjustment on women. Indeed, in many households that have built toilets, men do not even necessarily use them. This links with the broader issue of people resisting the introduction of toilets per se.

The regressive nature of such campaigns is now officially recognised with new governmental guidelines urging a rethink of behaviour-change tactics). Yet, much more needs to be done. As long as it is men who plan for toilets, the needs of women are either subsidiary or not taken into account at all.

Clearly, women have specific sanitation needs, for instance, related to menstrual hygiene. This needs to be fully integrated into any goals to boost sanitation – a challenge in a country where periods are associated with shame. Schemes for the provision of sanitary products constitute a definite step forward, but these are limited and environment-friendly disposal facilities and awareness campaigns are even more limited.

Open defecation in Pandharpur, a pilgrimage town.  SuSanA Secretariat c/o:Yaniv Malz, CC BY-SA

Attitudes to caste matter, too. Sanitation work is a very sensitive issue in India because it is mainly carried out by the lowest caste, Dalit – once called "untouchables". People from this caste even carry out manual scavenging, the inhuman practice of manually collecting human excrement from dry latrines to clean them – despite the fact that the practice is prohibited by law.

With millions of new toilets, more sanitation workers will be needed to carry out faecal sludge management. This will be difficult, as such jobs are stigmatised. Indeed, the conditions for such workers are often appalling – the media regularly reports on the deaths of sanitation workers who have entered sewers without any protective gear.

Clearly, one of the challenges India is facing is addressing this social stigma to make sanitation work an acceptable and safe career that is not reserved for a specific group in society. Mechanisation of the process could go some way to help ensure that workers do not need to enter the sewers.

Environmental threat

There are also risks to the environment. At present, the toilets that are built are mostly single pit latrines that will need to be emptied at least once every few years. Where the pits are lined at the bottom, the septage will need to be pumped out more regularly, and there need to be measures in place to ensure that it is not simply disposed of in neighbouring fields or rivers.

Where the pits are not lined, one of the concerns is the impact on groundwater quality. In the state of Kerala, where most houses have an unlined pit on one side of the house and a well used for drinking water on the other side, this is a particular problem. In a context where groundwater is the source of drinking water for around 80% of the population in India, the building of so many new toilets needs to be carefully planned.

Overall, the major progress that has been witnessed in access to sanitation over the past few years is a first step forward. It needs, however, to be linked to a series of other actions and an awareness of the social and cultural dimensions of sanitation. Without this, the country is unlikely to achieve full success.

https://theconversation.com/indias-ambitious-plans-to-achieve-sanitation-for-all-must-look-beyond-building-individual-toilets-82527

[zorgon]

Commuting in India?     No Thanks!

[petrus4]

India's Sanitary Conditions?

AIDS doesn't spread the same way other diseases do, Zorgon.  It is blood borne, not water or aerosol.  Bad sanitation will spread malaria, typhoid, dysentery etc; but not AIDS.

[zorgon]

AIDS doesn't spread the same way other diseases do, Zorgon.  It is blood borne, not water or aerosol.  Bad sanitation will spread malaria, typhoid, dysentery etc; but not AIDS.

I know that or from Monkey Diddling

[The Seeker]

Unfortunately it seems that countries like Pakistan still has quite a few charlatans and idiots posing as medical professionals; that is not good for their people and one wonders how many infectious diseases are being let or have been let into the states over the last decade...

[spacemaverick]

Unfortunately it seems that countries like Pakistan still has quite a few charlatans and idiots posing as medical professionals; that is not good for their people and one wonders how many infectious diseases are being let or have been let into the states over the last decade...

It's like the illegals coming across our border illegally.  They are not screened and suddenly we have outbreaks of measles and other things.  Then the powers that be blame it on children not being vaccinated.  Some diseases up until unchecked migration suddenly surged then we had a problem.  We didn't have that before.

[space otter]

geeeze guys...this was about a doctor with aids spreading it to innocent folk under the guise of medicine
  horrible ! horrible ! horrible !




your responses show how out of touch the public has become with
reading what is written and  then turning it into something it isn't

very sad on two fronts

[spacemaverick]

Sorry Space Otter.

[space otter]

dear space maverick
thank you..

but this just proves a point
a point that we have to read with our eyes wide open
and not be led off base

i am having a very very hard time with politics and what is happening to us...all politics
and how easily we jump at each other
i do respect all of your opinions on what you think would be best for this country that we love..but i don't agree with all of them and i don't think you have to agree with me

but i do feel very strongly that we need to stop calling names and feeling negitively towards anyone not agreeing with our personal choice

up until the last election i felt this forum was a wonderful space..even in disagreement about a point or a picture there was an honest liking of 'fellow explorers"....
but it's gone now and i feel very sad about the loss of being able to speak freely without being bombarded with mean comments

what we all had in common in looking for answers has been smashed
the high regard we had for each other is lessen to a point of disrespect for each other

i speak for myself in saying that it does hurt me..deeply and it keeps me from posting..i am sorry for that....i do miss you guys

be well
hugs

[Shasta56]

Sharing needles is a vector for a lot of bloodborne pathogens.  And unfortunately, quacks are not exclusive to India.

[The Seeker]

Officials have pointed to medical negligence across the local health care system as a likely cause of the outbreak. Many local officials have blamed "quacks," in apparent reference to the large number of unqualified individuals who practice medicine in the area.

"Possible causes included clinics run by quacks, use of a single syringe for multiple patients, and use of the same drip set for multiple patients," Siddique wrote in his op-ed. He added that at least 61 unsafe clinics have been "sealed" and 29 more health care centers warned in the wake of the outbreak.

Otter, the above quote is from your post, and I directed my comments to that particular item; also considering we have refugees here from Pakistan and that region, that is why I commented on what might possibly have been allowed in, since blood tests and screenings have not been conducted...

[thorfourwinds]

up until the last election i felt this forum was a wonderful space..even in disagreement about a point or a picture there was an honest liking of 'fellow explorers"....

but it's gone now and i feel very sad about the loss of being able to speak freely without being bombarded with mean comments

what we all had in common in looking for answers has been smashed
the high regard we had for each other is lessen to a point of disrespect for each other

Greetings Space Otter:

This forum IS "a wonderful place"... actually, it's what you [the members] make of it.

And I don't see what the election had to do with it. Please help me here.

being able to speak freely without being bombarded with mean comments

I see you've walked a mile in my shoes...

The "N" word is verboten here...LOL

[Shasta56]

We're not allowed to greet each other with "Nanu nanu?"  How bonjour, or jambo?

[Shasta56]

@Space Maverick,
My former sister-in-law crossed illegally, as did my nephew by marriage.  The only disease that got spread was my daughter spreading chickenpox to my brother's kids.