HIV Scandal in South Kazakstan

The announcement that 55 children in South Kazakstan region have been diagnosed with HIV has highlighted major defects in the healthcare system. NBCA analysts say the scandal undermines public confidence in the medical services.



The existence of an HIV outbreak in South Kazakstan has been public knowledge for three months, and the media have covered it in some detail. But news that the figure had climbed to 55 came in an announcement by Kazak health minister Yerbolat Dosaev on September 18. Health experts say this figure comes close to epidemic proportions.



The minister indicated that the mass infections were caused by poor hygiene standards during blood transfusions, the re-use of disposable equipment, and shortcomings in the system for registering blood donors.



The Kazak authorities have launched a criminal case under a provision making it illegal to infect others with HIV. Checks are being run on hospital staff, and Nursulu Tasmagambetova, the head of South Kazakstan region’s health department, has stepped down.



None of these actions has so far helped identify those responsible for allowing the HIV infection, or to find out what the source of the outbreak is – and more cases are continuing to be diagnosed.



The diagnosis of so many children as HIV-positive has made this a hugely political case, and some members of Kazakstan’s parliament are already calling for the health minister’s resignation.



Some NBCentralAsia analysts believe the case should serve as a wake-up call for a profoundly flawed healthcare system. For instance, they assert that corruption flourishes from top management down to the lowliest medical staff selling off syringes and medicines on the side. And as long as healthcare employees remain among the worst paid workers in the country, negligence is going to be a problem.



Even the government’s hasty allocation of more than 53 million US dollars for an HIV/AIDS programme running from 2006 to 2010 may not be enough to redress matters, say the analysts.



One of the gravest consequences of this scandal, say NBCentralAsia analysts, is that people’s trust in state healthcare provision will be left badly shaken.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)