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More
than 80 people, including elderly, women and children, have tested positive for
HIV/AIDS infection in a small village in Cambodia, authorities confirmed. The infection
may have been caused by medics re-using needles during treatment.
“It’s very rare indeed to have such a high
number of people affected in the same place, that’s why it’s really worth
investigating what happened,” UNAIDS country
director Marie-Odile Emond said.
She
added that none of the most commonly HIV transmission paths - mother-to-child,
sexual intercourse and drug use - seemed to cause the infection.
A
total 82 people in a village in Battambang province, northwestern Cambodia,
have been infected with the virus.
"Of
556 people tested, 72 of them came back positive for HIV/AIDS,"
Teng Kunthy, Secretary General of the National AIDS Authority, told AFP.
Fourteen children are among the infected, he added.
"This
is a higher rate than usual... It may be caused by the use of the same tools
such as needles. This is our preliminary conclusion... we are working to
collect more evidence," he said.
A
further 10 people tested positive for the virus, local HIV/AIDS program
director, Hei Sik, told AFP, adding that the villagers suspected the infection “may have been caused by injections from
private local medics.”
"This
is a surprisingly high rate, the highest that I have ever seen. Some of them
are women aged in their 70s and 80s," Hei Sik added.
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At
least 30 village residents told the National AIDS Authority (NAA) they had
received injections for different maladies, from typhoid to fevers, from an
unlicensed local doctor.
“I
suspect we got this from the injection that a doctor in this commune did to the
villagers who often went to get services from him,”
Seoum Chhorn, deputy chief of Roka commune, where the infection was centered,
told the Phnom Penh Post. Chhorn, his wife and two grandchildren tested
positive for the virus.
He
identified the doctor as Yem Chren, who left the commune a week ago with his
wife. Health officials have been trying to contact Chren since Sunday, but
unsuccessfully.
“I
want to appeal to the Ministry of Health and the government to intervene and
help us immediately and take action against the doctor who treated and cheated
the villagers when he is unskilled,” added Chhorn.
Now
the infected villagers are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) drugs from
NAA to have the disease under control.
The
first HIV case was reported in Cambodia back in 1991. Since then more than
76,000 people are currently living with the virus in the country, according to
UNAIDS estimates from 2012.
Authorities are trying hard
to stop the spread of the virus. Prime Minister Hun Sen promised to stop new
HIV infections by 2020. Cambodia also allocated at least US$3.7 million of
national funding to HIV treatment from 2015 to 2017.
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