LARKANA: The doctor, who was accused of spreading HIV through irresponsible reuse of disposable syringes in Ratodero, moved an application for bail in the court of district and sessions judge on Thursday.
The doctor’s lawyer Athar Abbas Solangi said the court would hear the application on May 6 and contended that the section quoted in the FIR against his client was not applicable in his case as it did not mention any attempt to commit qatal-i-amad (premeditated murder).
He said the case required further inquiry and since the applicant would not abscond or was not in a position to tamper with the prosecution evidence, he might be released on bail.
Sources at HIV/AIDS treatment centre in Chandka Medical College Hospital said that further tests of those found HIV positive after blood screening over the past few days would be conducted at Aga Khan Laboratory.
Dr Ramesh Lal, medical superintendent of Ratodero taluka hospital, said that a team of district health office continued blood screening tests for HIV at the hospital on Thursday after the Sindh AIDS Control Programme wound up its camps a day before, and found 12 children out of 186 individuals HIV positive.
He said that another blood screening camp was established in Bhai Khan Ghanghro village where 160 people were screened and fortunately none of them tested HIV positive.
The sources said that a doctors’ team comprising Waheeduddin Pirzada, Mohammad Iqbal Soomro, Syed Akbar Shah, Naresh Kumar and Sajid from Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital, Karachi, would reach here on Friday to deliver services at the special HIV screening camp.
Meanwhile, Larkana DIG Irfan Ali Baloch wrote a letter to secretary of health requesting him to depute three to four senior doctors to assist the joint investigation team formed for probing the case.
PMA wants release of arrested doctors
BADIN: The Badin chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) condemned arrests of doctors in Ratodero and in Hyderabad and demanded they be released immediately.
Dr Ansar Hussain Jaffary, president of PMA Badin, said at a meeting of the association on Thursday that the arrests were “illegal”.
He expressed anguish over the harsh treatment being meted out to the doctors and medical professionals and said it would prove counterproductive.
‘HIV spreaders to be made an example’
KARACHI: Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister on Information, Law and Anti-corruption, Barrister Murtaza Wahab has said that the persons responsible for spreading HIV will be made an example of.
He said that health department had made all arrangements for blood screening test for HIV and the department’s teams were working in Larkana and its adjoining areas including Ratodero.
Children HIV carriers not AIDS patients, says secy
NAWABSHAH: Secretary of Health Saeed Ahmed Awan has said that 10 children out of total 15 who reported in Larkana hospitals are HIV carriers but not AIDS patients.
Talking to journalists at a ceremony for the distribution of laptops at the Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences here on Thursday, the secretary said the blood screening exercise revealed that parents of the infected children were not HIV positive, strengthening suspicions the disease might have spread through quacks.
The ongoing anti-quack operation in Larkana would soon be extended to all areas of Sindh, he added.
44 clinics, labs sealed in Shikarpur
SHIKARPUR: Forty-four unregistered quacks’ clinics, laboratories, maternity homes and medical stores in Garhi Yaseen, Lakhi, Khanpur and Shikarpur towns were sealed on Thursday in a crackdown launched by the administration in the wake of spread of HIV in Larkana.
Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2019
