PESHAWAR, Nov 30: Many people deported from the United Arab Emirate and Middle Eastern countries after being tested positive for HIV/Aids positive have been transmitting the killer ailment to their wives and children, said director-general of health department, Brig Dr Habibur Rehman.

“The people deported from the UAE and ME countries are the main source of transmitting the deadly infection to their wives and newborn babies in the male-dominated society. There must be facilities at the airports to screen all the deportees for the HIV and other diseases to save the gullible people from being infected,” said Dr Rehman. According to him, several factors including abuse of disposable syringes, quackery, unsterilized equipment used by the health professionals, illicit sexual contracts and hospital waste containing infective stuff had endangered the lives of the people and there was an urgent need to inform the general public through print and electronic media that they could save themselves by taking preventive measures.

Dr Ahmad Ali, the provincial AIDS programme coordinator, came up with  the startling figures  regarding  the prevalence of the disease in this part of the country. Ninety- five per cent of affected people belonged to the Third World countries and happen to be the second largest killer after cancer, said the doctor.

Giving statistics, Dr Ali said there were 1741 AIDS patients with an alarming number of the HIV positive cases detected in Pakistan. The province of Sindh with 567 cases leads tally of HIV-infected persons, followed by Punjab with 232, Federal  Administrated  Tribal Areas, NWFP with 359  and  Blochistan with 400. The AIDS has killed four million people worldwide, bulk of affected people es belonged to African countries, he said, adding that the matter was of immense concern that killed a specific target age- group of people between 18-35 years.

About the transmission of the AIDS, Dr Ali said that 63 per cent got infected through heterosexuality and another 7.3 per cent blood and its products. Three per cent of the infected  mothers then transmitted the virus to their children, he said.

Meanwhile, patients interview by Dawn after being deported from the UAE narrated their stories as to how the  officials mistreated them after tested positive for HIV.

A lady, 34, was tested HIV positive in a private laboratory a month ago. Her husband, now dead, was an HIV positive patient deported from the UAE two years ago. The unfortunate person didn’t know having contracted the disease and transmitted the virus unintentionally to her wife.

“She was referred to me by a physician the for some other disease. She had gone there for bad stomach. She was found as HIV positive and so does her would-be child,” said a pathologist who performed the test. Her husband who died in December last, came to know only a few days before his death.

In another case, a young woman’s death in a Fata’s area in July last, also got the disease from her husband, who was a porter in Dubai. The lives of her three children are at stake. The doctors say they had not acquired the infection.