Monday, June 17, 2019
#Pakistan - #HIV-positive cases arise in #Gujrat
More than 2000 people in Gujrat, district of Punjab, have been tested HIV positive on Monday whereas 120 children have been reported affected in this outbreak.
As per reports, a large number of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) cases has started to emerge in Punjab province after a chaotic number of patients contracted HIV in Sindh.
According to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Health Dr. Zahid Tanveer, not only adults but a large number of children have also been diagnosed with the disease. He informed that three centers have been set up in Gujrat and its adjoining areas to treat the patients.
Why and how HIV is spreading so rapidly? Health department does not seem to take high-level precautionary measures in this case. It has been reported that if this fast spreading disease does not get under control soon then Pakistan’s situation will be no different than Nigeria and South Africa in three to five years.
Earlier today, Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr Zafar Mirza said that a 10-member team of World Health Organization’s (WHO) technical and professional expert would visit Pakistan to investigate the outbreak of HIV in affected area of Larkana.
He added based on this request, a WHO high level mission was coming to the affected area. He said that the decision to invite international experts was made to exactly reviewing the situation and to ascertain the cause, advises on mitigation measures and ways and means of avoiding future recurrence.
#Pakistan - #HIV Hitting #Punjab - #Pakistani authorities cannot exonerate themselves from the criminal negligence that they have shown so far.
Had the provincial government and concerned department been vigilant against the life-taking disease, the figures could have been controlled. The authorities cannot exonerate themselves from the criminal negligence that they have shown so far. What is shocking and disgusting is the behaviour of the provincial authorities that tried to sweep the issue under the carpet instead of organising screening camps to probe the reasons for the surge in the numbers of the HIV patients. Before anything else, the Punjab government should initiate an investigation against officials who issued strict warnings to the PACP staff against bringing any information out in public.
Also, the Chief Minister (CM) should immediately fire those who tried to conceal the issue. If the Punjab government does not take action against the responsible ones, then it is difficult to ignore that the provincial government was also in collaboration with the concerned authorities to avoid earning a bad name for itself.
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of others tend to repeat such mistakes. Instead of learning from the mistakes of Sindh the Health authorities in Punjab chose to remain idle against the menace of quackery that according to the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) is the leading cause of HIV/AIDS spread. Even in the largest province of Naya Pakistan, departments are not fulfilling their duties, as the members of PMA accuse the Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) of ignoring the quackery.
Although Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) had made tall claims to revolutionise the health sector of the country, the provincial minister for health, Dr Yasmin Rashid, did not make herself available to comment on the spread of HIV. What is clear from the recent surge in cases of HIV/ AIDS cases is the fact that authorities here do not value preventive approach against any menace. Officials only come into action when a mishap happens.
Yet the increase in the cases of HIV/AIDS cannot be termed as an epidemic; nevertheless, the surge in the number of HIV/AIDS patients at an alarming level is an issue of real concern. The provincial government should take all the necessary actions to save others from falling victims to HIV/AIDS.
https://nation.com.pk/13-Jun-2019/hiv-hitting-punjab
#Pakistan - #HIV in #Punjab
After the HIV panic that struck Rato Dero in the Larkana district of Sindh, with 751 persons including 600 children testing positive, Punjab has owned up to a major HIV problem of its own. In five districts, Faisalabad, Chiniot, Sahiwal, Jhang and Nankana Sahib, there are currently more than 2,800 patients registered with the Punjab AIDS Control Programme. There could of course be other sufferers who have not been detected or have not registered for free medication. Indeed, this is likely given that most discovered their condition accidentally, in screening before donating blood, undergoing a surgery or travelling overseas.
While the authorities have denied the surge in HIV cases, there are also other concerns. One of these is the reportedly routine refusal by public-sector hospitals to perform surgery on HIV-infected patients. As a result, these persons turn to dubious private clinics or quacks who use equipment that may not later undergo proper sterilisation, thereby contributing to the spread of the disease. As has been the case in Sindh, health sources also believe quacks are a major cause behind the spread of the virus as are unregistered doctors who use unsafe equipment. This is obviously an emergency.
The WHO had already declared a level two emergency in Sindh and will be releasing its report on the situation early next year. The organisation has said that $1.5 million is needed to tackle the epidemic. While it cannot generate the full amount, it will be making some payment towards tackling HIV in Sindh.
The organisation also warns that Pakistan is now registering nearly 20,000 new HIV cases annually. This is the highest figure in the region. It will do no good to try and cover up the truth. All medical bodies and health officials need in fact to make it more public so that people can adopt necessary safeguards. It is essential that awareness and knowledge be spread to do away with myths and misperceptions. Today, drugs to combat AIDS are available in markets. Too few in Pakistan know about them or have access to them. Such ignorance can contribute only to an even more rapid growth in infection. The government needs to adopt a more transparent and more aggressive approach to prevent an even bigger crisis from taking hold across the country.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/485161-hiv-in-punjab
#Pakistan - Alarming surge in HIV/AIDS cases in five districts of Punjab
The number of HIV-positive persons is increasing at an alarming rate in the five districts of Punjab -- Faisalabad, Chiniot, Sahiwal, Jhang and Nankana -- and currently more than 2,800 such patients from these areas are registered with the Punjab AIDS Control Programme (PACP) for free medicines.
According to PACP sources, the programme’s Faisalabad unit set up in a room at the Allied Hospital that provides free medicines to the HIV/AIDS patients registered with it, receives 70 to 90 cases of the ailment monthly from these five districts.
They say that most of these patients come to know about their condition through screening tests conducted before donating blood, travelling abroad or undergoing a surgery.
It is worrying that in spite of such a high incidence of HIV-positive persons in these areas, neither the provincial government, nor the district administrations so far organised any screening camps to know the reasons for such a high number of the HIV patients.
The sources said that since the surfacing of a large number of HIV/AIDS cases in Ratto Dero taaulqa of Larkana district, Sindh, earned a bad name for the province’s government, the authorities concerned in Punjab were not highlighting the issue to save their skin.Authorities ‘hush up’ the issue to avoid criticisim
They said that the concerned PACP staff had strictly been warned against leaking any information with regard to the high incidence of the disease here.
Acting on the verbal directions by the authorities, the PACP officials at the Allied Hospital were not ready to share the figures of patients officialy, nor they were willing to divulge the areas from where the patients coming and how they contacted the virus.
Meanwhile, The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), expressing its serious concern over the situation, severely criticised the district administrations for their failure to check the menace of quackery in their respective areas which, it termed a major source of HIV/AIDS spread.
Discussing the issue during a meeting held here on Monday night with Dr Saulat Nawaz in the chair, the members of PMA also accused the Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) of condoning quackery.
They alleged that the so-called anti-quackery operations launched from time to time were just a source of increasing the monthly bribe of the officials concerned.
The sources pointed out that the practice of refusing surgeries to HIV/AIDS patients by the public hospitals was also a cause of the disease’s spread. Such patients then had no option but to approach private hospitals where they undergo the knife without blood screening, they added. This resulted in spread of the virus to other patients who undergo surgeries at the private hospitals through poorly manged surgical instruments.
They said the quacks, especially fake dentists, also spread the virus by using instruments that were not sterilised.
The PMA Faisalabad chapter secretary Dr Mohammad Irfan who is also working as an assistant professor of medicine at the Allied Hospital, said the World Health Organization (WHO) had warned Pakistan that it was registering approximately 20,000 new HIV/AIDS cases annually, the highest rate in the region.
He said the quacks, coupled with sex workers and transgenders, were also contributing to disease spread. He regretted that quacks were running private hospitals and the district administration was taking no action against them.
He added that mortality ratio among Pakistanis carrying the virus was also rising, in spite of the availability of lifesaving Antiretroviral drugs.
He said the PMA would take up the issue with the concerned quarters to fight the menace rather than hiding the facts.
Neither Deputy Commissioner Saifullah Dogar, nor Commissioner Javeed Bhatti replied to the queries sent by this scribe with regard to surge in HIV/AIDS cases.
A message was also sent to the provincial minister for health, Dr Yasmin Rashid, but she did not reply.
Dr Mushtaq Sipra, chief executive officer of the Faisalabad health authority, told Dawn that the PACP staff did not share any information regarding its functions and data of patients with the authority.
“I will contact the head of the PACP in Faisalabad Dr Nazia and ask her to submit a report on the issue,” he said.
Pakistani officials claim women trafficked into prostitution in China after marriage
With waves of arrests, Pakistani investigators are trying to unravel trafficking networks that convince impoverished Pakistanis to marry off their daughters to Chinese men for cash and they say evidence is growing that many of the women and girls are sold into prostitution once in China.
At least two dozen Chinese nationals and dozens of their Pakistani partners have been arrested in recent weeks in raids by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency. Pakistani government officials, however, have ordered police to remain quiet about the extent of the networks, fearing it could hurt increasingly close economic ties with Beijing, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.
"We are interested only in stopping the trafficking. Make no mistake, this is trafficking," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the government order. "We think the majority are sold as prostitutes," he said of the women married in the trafficking schemes.
The Associated Press spoke to seven girls who had been forced to marry Chinese men, four of them still in China. Each described how their new husbands handed them over to paying clients to be raped.
"I was living in hell-like conditions, silently weeping, silently praying for help," said 20-year-old Natasha Masih. She told of how her husband locked her in a hotel in the remote northwest Chinese city of Urumqi and forced her into prostitution.
Pakistan became a focus of Chinese marriage brokers last year and activists say that since then as many as 1,000 women and girls have been married off to Chinese men. Most of the women are from Pakistan's small Christian community, who are among the country's most desperately poor. Brokers offer families cash to give their daughters as brides, promising them well-off Chinese husbands who would give them a good life. The business is fueled by demand in China, where men outnumber women.
In Pakistan, some Christian pastors are paid to help brokers lure members of their flock into marriages and the girls — married against their will — become isolated in China and vulnerable to abusive husbands, previous AP reporting found.
China's ambassador to Pakistan, speaking on local television, denied girls are trafficked to China and sold into prostitution. Trafficking was not discussed during a visit to Pakistan this month by China's vice president, Wang Qishan. In comments carried in the Pakistani press, Wang denied trafficking was taking place.
"China is denying it is happening, but we are showing the proof," said Saleem Iqbal, a Christian activist who has helped bring girls back from China.
The two law enforcement officials said one of the trafficking networks raided by police, based in the city of Lahore, had been operating for at least a year. It was protected by corrupt policemen, and the son of a former senior police official served as the lynchpin between the Chinese and Pakistani operatives, the officials said.
One woman, Sumaira, told the AP how her brothers were paid by brokers and forced her into such a marriage in July last year. The 30-year-old said her husband took her first to a house in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, and there she was raped each night by Chinese men for a week.
Before they were to leave for China, she convinced her husband to allow her to go home to say farewell to her sisters. There, she refused to return to the husband and screamed at her brothers, "Why did you sell me? How much money did you get for me?'" she said. The brothers beat her, but she managed to escape to the home of an uncle.
Before her marriage, Sumaira had run a beauty salon in a poor, mostly Christian neighborhood of the Punjab town of Gujranwala. "I was a very different person than what you see now," she said. "Then I had hope. I believed in my future. Now I don't know."
Masih told the AP she was married off in November and soon after left her home in Faisalabad, flying to China with her husband. He took her to the northwest of the country, to a small house in a forested area. Three male and two female friends of her husband shared the house.Her husband forced her to have sex with the men. Then he took her to the Urumqi hotel, where he confined her to a room and sold her into prostitution.
"I bought you in Pakistan," she said her husband told her. "You belong to me. You are my property."
Natasha made furtive calls to her parents on her mobile phone, and her mother turned to her church for help. One parishioner, Farooq Masih, formed a group of men from the congregation to try to rescue Natasha. One of the men had a younger brother who was a student in China, said Masih, who is not related to Natasha. The brother agreed to pose as a client and pay him to sleep with Natasha.
Instead, when the student went to the hotel in a taxi, he called Natasha and told her to slip out to meet him.
"I saw him and quickly I took my clothes and got into his taxi," she said. "I didn't ask his name. I didn't ask anything, I just said, 'Brother, thank you.'" Soon she was on a plane to Pakistan.Farooq Masih and the men from the church have since dedicated hours to unearthing trafficking networks. They recently conducted their own sting operation in Faisalabad, orchestrating a fake marriage that led the Federal Investigation Agency to the brokers and the pastor who solemnized the unions for a fee.
"I am lucky," Natasha said. "Many girls who were taken there by their husbands are still living a terrible life. ... Now I know what is freedom and what is slavery. In China, I was treated as a slave by my husband."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/human-trafficking-pakistani-officials-claim-pakistan-women-married-men-in-china-sold-into-prostitution/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)