ISLAMABAD: After two siblings were found to have contracted HIV in the federal capital, six members of the National Assembly submitted a calling attention notice to the house on Tuesday.

The lawmakers invited the attention of Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry towards “unscreened, contaminated and HIV/Aids infected blood in the capital city, resulting in the spread of Aids and other hazardous diseases.”

MNAs Shazia Marri, Dr Azra Fazal, Mehreen Bhutto and others in their notice stated that it was a serious matter and needed an immediate response from the government.

Nadeem Bhatti, who works as a ward boy at the Capital Hospital, told Dawn that his son, 8, and daughter, 7, were suffering from platelet functional disorder (haemophilia).

Haemophilia is mostly an inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding.

This results in people bleeding longer after an injury, easy bruising and an increased risk of bleeding inside joints or the brain.

Six lawmakers submit calling attention notice to National Assembly seeking immediate response from govt

“My children require platelets, white cells and sometimes red blood cells every week. My daughter started falling sick and after conducting some tests the doctors learnt that she was infected with HIV. Then they tested my son and also found him positive for HIV,” he said.

Mr Bhatti said the doctors also conducted tests on him and his wife to see if the children had inherited the virus from them.

But both Mr Bhatti and his wife tested negative for HIV. The doctors then told him that his children had been infected with HIV from the transfusion of unsafe blood.

In reply to a question, Mr Bhatti said his children mostly got blood from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), the Capital Hospital, a private hospital in Islamabad and a semi-government hospital in Rawalpindi.

“I cannot say for sure from where my children got the contaminated blood,” he said.

In December 2014, health expert Prof Dr Javaria Mannan announced that during her study she had found at least 10 children, who were thalassaemia patients, infected with HIV. However, during investigation, the claim could not be proved as Dr Javeria refused to share data on the children. The recent cases in the capital have again raised eyebrows over flaws in the blood transfusion programme of the country.

However, a statement issued by Pims said its blood bank had a very modern and advanced screening system.

“All blood donations are screened on this system and the quality assurance system is in place. Every day, 150-200 patients receive blood components from the Pims blood bank and there have been no complaints.”

The statement said the two children received platelets, plasma and red cell transfusions from Pims, CDA Hospital and many other private and public sector blood banks in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and other cities. “It is likely that they got infected from a transfusion from a substandard blood bank.”

The incharge of Safe Blood Transfusion Programme, Prof Hassan Abbas Zaheer, told Dawn that both the children received around 1,700 blood transfusions from Pims and a large number from other areas.

“All the blood banks in the federal capital are quite safe because they use automated blood screening kits. However, in other parts of the country, manual blood screening kits are used which are not considered safe,” he said.

When contacted, CDA spokesperson Mazhar Hussain said the two siblings had never received blood at the Capital Hospital.

Published in Dawn February 1st, 2017