GUJRAT: The Punjab government has established its second special clinic for children tested positive for HIV/AIDS in Major Shabbir Sharif Hospital in the district’s Kunjah town.

Previously there was only one such clinic in the entire province -- at Services Hospital Lahore.

Dr Abid Ghauri, the Major Shabbir Sharif Hospital medical superintendent, told Dawn that the clinic was established for children aged up to 15 years and 11 patients had been provided the antiretroviral drugs here. Earlier, these children had to go to Services Hospital for treatment.

He said that the children were also presented gifts and refreshments by the hospital administration.

Dr Ghauri said a voluntary confidential counselling and testing centre had also started working at the hospital under the Punjab AIDS Control Programme (PACP) which will provide counselling and testing facilities to patients for free. Initially, the psychiatrist at Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Hospital was asked to run the centre and later some more specialists from Lahore will be engaged.

The PACP also held a capacity-building workshop on HIV/AIDS awareness and treatment aspects for district and tehsil healthcare providers.

CROSSFIRE: A man was killed and three others were injured in an exchange of fire between two rival groups over a land dispute in Ahmedabad locality near Pind Dadan Khan, Jhelum, on Friday.

The victim was identified as Muhammad Aslam. His group was busy constructing a house on a disputed piece of land when the rival group opened fire on it. The fire exchange injured two of the fellows of Aslam and one Afsar of the rival group.

The injured were shifted to the tehsil headquarters (THQ) hospital of Pind Dadan Khan. Lilla police was yet to lodge the case when the report was filed.

TWO DIE: Two labourers died when a chunk of land fell on them when they were taking bricks out of a well in Bhagowal Kalan village in Gujrat district.

Rescue 1122 team recovered the bodies of both the workers from the well with the help of an excavator.

The deceased were later identified as Zaheer and Faisal Shah.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2017