Print:
Adjust font size: - +

October 03, 2006

Kazakh Health Ministry Announces Sixth Child's AIDS Death

(RFE/RL)

October 3, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Kazakhstan's Health Ministry announced today that a sixth child has died of AIDS in the country's Southern Kazakhstan region in an outbreak that has been blamed on official malfeasance.


A statement posted on the ministry's website says 66 other children infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, have been registered in the area, including one who was taken abroad for adoption.
 
In a separate statement issued on October 2, the Health Ministry said AIDS experts from Slovakia's Presov University were expected in southern Kazakhstan in November to help authorities cope with the outbreak.
 
The children were contaminated at hospitals in Shymkent, the Southern Kazakhstan region's main city.
 
Officials believe they were infected either through tainted syringes or transfusions of contaminated blood.
 
Criminal charges have been brought against several medical workers and hospital staff members.
 
President Nursultan Nazarbaev September 20 dismissed Health Minister Yerbolat Dosaev and Southern Kazakhstan Region Governor Bolat Jylkyshiev as the death toll mounted. Both men are accused of negligence in handling the outbreak.


Dozens of children have been diagnosed with the HIV virus in the past several months.


Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2010 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.