KARACHI: The incident in Shikarpur district, in which a woman who tested positive for HIV and a few days later her body was found hanging from a tree, has alarmed the provincial health authorities who are now planning for community screening in Shikarpur, officials in the health ministry have said.

They said that a mother of four children found inflicted with the lifelong infection at a healthcare facility warranted the authorities to widen the scope of their investigation for HIV incidence in parts of Shikarpur, which are contiguous to Larkana.

Local authorities claimed that it was a case of ‘suicide’ without elaborating further.

“On a limited scale,” said an official in the Sindh health ministry, “screening of one or more parts of that district has already been launched”.

However, officials believed that the situation in other parts of Sindh was not as grave as in Ratodero taluka of Larkana.

Health Minister Azra Pechuho had recently told the provincial legislature that screening of communities in parts of Larkana was under way; however, it was not possible for the health ministry with limited resources to launch similar activities in other districts of Sindh.

She had said the Sindh AIDS Control Pro­gra­mme was engaged in screening people wherever the situation warranted it.

So far, latest report shared with the media by the health ministry suggested that a total of 733 out of 25,433 people screened at three health facilities in Larkana, have tested positive against HIV infection.

A shocking 598 of those victims are children with a majority of those aged between two to five years. The remaining 135 victims are adults. The HIV infection has almost equally affected the two genders, officials conceded.

The screening is being carried out at Taluka Headquarters Hospital Ratodero, rural health centre Banguldero and Basic Health Unit Naudero.

The body hanging by a dupatta on a tree was found near the house of a 30-year-old woman who had tested positive for HIV and unfortunately became the first such victim outside Larkana district.

The government hospital in Shikarpur also tested her spouse and four of their children and none of them was found inflicted with the deadly disease.

The woman’s report was sent to the SACP’s Karachi office that reconfirmed the report and sent her to its office in Larkana for further treatment. The woman went there and got medicines, as confirmed by the local health authorities.

The officials at the Sindh health ministry said such an incident was alarming and warranted greater investigation to ascertain whether it was limited to Larkana and nearby regions or had impacted even more areas.

‘New and strange incident of its kind’

A team of experts of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is visiting Larkana to investigate the infection and help the local authorities in mitigating and treating the patients has declared the HIV scare in the north-western parts of Sindh as a “new and strange incident of its kind”.

And what is more shocking in the whole saga is that why the deadly disease has infected such a large number of children and so quickly.

“These questions need to be answered and the WHO team’s visit has this on their key agenda,” said an official in the health ministry. “These answers are important to get because they’ll help prevent similar incidence of this lethal disease in other areas and regions.”

A WHO spokesperson has said key tasks for the WHO-led team included ascertaining the source of the outbreak and controlling it; providing technical expertise, particularly in the areas of HIV testing, paediatric HIV treatment and family counselling; and ensuring adequate supplies of rapid diagnostic tests and antiretroviral medicines for both adults and children, as well as single-use needles and syringes.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2019