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Pakistani doctors blame quacks for alarming rise in HIV cases
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IANS | 12 Jun, 2019
The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has blamed quack doctors
practicing without training and professional certification for an
alarming rise in the number of HIV positive patients in the country, the
media reported on Wednesday.
The doctors associated with the PMA
said that the quacks, especially fake dentists, spread the virus by
using instruments that were not sterilized, adding that despite
free-of-cost availability of life-saving antiretroviral drugs at
government hospitals, mortality ratio among patients carrying the virus
was also increasing.
An alarming surge in HIV cases has been
witnessed in five districts of Pakistan's Punjab province, with 70 to 90
cases being reported monthly at the main government health facility in
Faisalabad city, Dawn News reported.
Earlier this month, an
international team of experts from the World Health Organization kicked
off an investigation into the sudden HIV outbreak in Pakistan's Sindh
province after over 700 people were diagnosed with the virus in a matter
of weeks, most of them were children.
Following the outbreak,
authorities launched a crackdown on unqualified doctors as well as
illegal blood banks and laboratories said to be involved in spreading
the disease. At least 17 quack doctors were arrested and more than 70
clinics in Larkana district were shut down, according to Xinhua news
agency.
According to the PMA, over 600,000 quacks are currently
practicing in the country with more than 80,000 based in Punjab province
alone.
The association demanded the government to make all-out efforts to stop the menace of quackery in the country.
Pakistan
was considered a country of low HIV prevalence for long, but the
disease is expanding at an alarming rate with about 20,000 new HIV cases
reported in 2017 alone, according to the UN.
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