PESHAWAR, Nov 24: Three patients have been diagnosed positive for HIV over the past one month in the NWFP, data collected from private clinics reveal.

"A 23-year-old woman from Swat tested positive for HIV infection. She contracted the disease from her husband," said a physician.

The doctor said that her husband worked as a driver in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and was deported. He died a few months ago. The doctor said that the woman had an eight-month-old daughter who had not yet contracted the disease.

A pathologist at a private laboratory told Dawn that a man, belonging to tribal area, was tested positive for HIV. "The patient was working in the UAE as labourer for the last three years and used to have unsafe sex," said the pathologist.

"His wife could also be tested positive, because the couple had not taken precautionary measures," he said. A woman, belonging to Jehangira, Swabi district, was the third unfortunate one to have been tested positive for the HIV last month.

"From clinical symptoms, I prescribed her HIV test, which was tested positive," said the physician, who claimed that the number of patients was much more than stated by the National AIDS Control Programme. Data compiled by the National AIDS Control Programme showed that it had detected 2,141 such cases since 1990 of which 1,897 people were HIV positive and 244 had AIDS.