October 26, 2019

"Nearly 900 children in the small Pakistani city of Ratodero were bedridden early this year with raging fevers that resisted treatment...."

"In April, the disease was pinned down, and the diagnosis was devastating: The city was the epicenter of an H.I.V. outbreak that overwhelmingly affected children....When officials descended on Ratodero to investigate, they discovered that many of the infected children had gone to the same pediatrician, Muzaffar Ghanghro, who served the city’s poorest families and appeared to be at the center of the outbreak.... The effect on Ratodero’s social fabric has been grim. In May, one man strangled his H.I.V.-positive wife to death. And in June, residents in another town discovered their neighbor tied to a tree by her family, after she had tested positive for the virus. The family said they had bound her to prevent her from spreading the virus to the rest of the town. After public outcry and police intervention, the family untied her. She now lives in an isolated room in the house, her every movement monitored by her family."

From "Panic in Pakistani City After 900 Children Test Positive for H.I.V./Health workers say the reuse of syringes drove the outbreak in the city of Ratodero" (NYT).

One woman is quoted saying, "It seems it is God’s affliction on us. How could so many of our children have such a terrible disease?"

38 comments:

whitney said...

I wonder what the shots were for. Childhood shots are generally vaccines. Maybe antibiotics also? What does anyone get shots for. My last was a flu shot. And the one before that was a flu shot

Lucid-Ideas said...

In Peshawar they still believe sin is the primary cause for earthquakes. So you really have to look at it from their perspective. Why not god? And more importantly, god had the ability to render the HIV in the syringe inert, so reusing the same syringe is immaterial.

God has visited this terrible plague on you and your family because women wear short skirts, India are a bunch of bastards, and the madrassas aren't as full as they could be. Insha Allah.

mockturtle said...

How could so many of our children have such a terrible disease?

I have a couple of theories...

GatorNavy said...

I’ve been to that oh-so-fun part of the world, so color me unsurprised about this story.

Sebastian said...

"It seems it is God’s affliction on us. How could so many of our children have such a terrible disease?"

If only she had declared a rock sacred, then we would have taken her seriously.

Nichevo said...

One woman is quoted saying, "It seems it is God’s affliction on us. How could so many of our children have such a terrible disease?"


Perhaps you shouldn't have propped up the Taliban and hidden Osama Bin Laden a mile outside of Abbottabad, your version of West Point. Maybe that's why God is afflicting you. Plus you could not reuse needles.

Birkel said...

Maybe we could follow Senate Republicans' plans to let more foreign-trained "skilled" workers into America while we create rules that drive older American doctors to retirement? That seems like the answer to our doctor shortage plan.

Open borders seems an awesome plan, Chamber of Commerce congresspeople.

Heartless Aztec said...

Reading between the lines here is very unsettling.

Ann Althouse said...

The article makes it clear that the problem was, in all likelihood, the reuse of syringes.

Ann Althouse said...

Remember that it was true in America, when AIDs first broke into our consciousness in the 1980s, that people, including children were shunned.

"But it wasn’t just the fact that Ryan White had AIDS. It was what had happened as a result of him contracting the disease. He had been ostracized in his hometown of Kokomo. The superintendent of his school district refused to let him attend classes, in case he infected his schoolmates. He and his mother Jeanne became involved in a protracted legal battle. When the Indiana department of education ruled in his favour, a group of parents filed an injunction to block his return: they were allowed to hold an auction in the school gymnasium to raise funds to keep him out. When that failed, they set up an alternative school, so that their children didn’t have to go near him. He was abused in the street, his school locker was spray-painted with the word FAG and his possessions were vandalized. The tyres on his mother’s car were slashed and a bullet was shot through the family’s front window. When the local paper supported him, they received death threats. Even their Methodist church turned its back on them: when it came to the blessing at their Easter service, no one in the congregation would shake Ryan’s hand and say ‘peace be with you’ to him. Throughout it all, Ryan and his mother Jeanne behaved with unbelievable dignity, bravery and compassion. Christians who truly held to the teachings of Christ, they forgave the people who made their already difficult lives even more hellish."

John, Elton. Me (p. 206). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.

Michael K said...

The Ryan White thing was when mode of transmission was still unknown.

Gann, one of the authors of California's Prop 13 was infected by a blood transfusion.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Horrifying. We take for granted that we will have access to clean fresh new syringes.
RE-using them is so disgusting.

Are the democrats blaming Trump yet?

n.n said...

God has described rules for evolutionary and social fitness. God also advised to recognize a separation of logical domains. The fault lies with the practices of a mortal god and secular religion.

mockturtle said...

Most immunizations are given by intramuscular injection. None are given intravenously. While it is possible to transfer HIV by IM injection it is far less likely than by the IV route used by drug abusers. It seems unlikely to me that this is the whole story.

stever said...

Its not mysterious. Not an easy disease to spread like that.

Lydia said...

I remember the very sad case of the wife and child of Michael Glaser, the actor on Starsky & Hutch. She contracted it from a contaminated blood transfusion after childbirth, and then she passed it on to her baby daughter through breastfeeding.

YoungHegelian said...

While I'm not exactly a fan of Pakistani anything, & definitely not Pakistani Islam, the doctor explicitly transgressed against the faith by causing harm to his patients. Whatever the reason he did it (greed, disdain, etc), he sinned.

Is this any worse than the shit that goes down in China, where babies & dogs die because primary manufacturers adulterate the formula & pet food? There's no bunch of "dumb believers" involved in those abominations.

We in the US just take for granted an awful lot of societal trust in the course of our business transactions. Other countries aren't so lucky.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Just don’t call Pakistan a shithole country. That wouldn’t be nice.

Darrell said...

No borders, no wall, third-world diseases for all.

Birches said...

Oh my word. I'm going to have nightmares about this tonight.

Those poor children. That poor town! Between this and the fake vaccine program to catch Bin Ladin why would anyone in Pakistan get vaccinations?

And it's easy to vilify people scared of Ryan White. But back then, it was a scary time. I mean, no one would question that kind of behavior if someone had Ebola. Quarantine seems like reasonable behavior for most horrible diseases. One of my friends from 3rd grade contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. This was around 90. I don't remember a big controversy, but he didn't keep going to school because of other health concerns.

Fernandinande said...

people, including children were shunned.

If you can't shun people with a deadly contagious disease (and They, CDC and MSM, exaggerated its potential for contagion so it wouldn't appear to be a "gay disease", which is mostly was) who should you shun? Trump supporters?

gspencer said...

Odd, didn't know that the American gay mafia had an outpost in a Muslim country. But where children are available, the homo lobby will be there. Look for a Drag Queen Story Hours to show up next.

Quaestor said...

"It seems it is God’s affliction on us. How could so many of our children have such a terrible disease?"

Job 41, King James Version: Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make many supplications unto thee?

Job 41, Quaestor Version: Shutup, explained the Lord.

Ken B said...

Yeah. Every time you quote Elton John I like him less.

h said...

I recorded on TMC and have begun watching (but had to stop part way though) the silent film German version of "Faust". As in Job, the story begins with a sort of bet between God and the Devil about whether or not a good man can be persuaded to take evil actions. the story of Faust also begins with a plague in the town.

Ken B said...

Here is what I object to most in that passage from Elton John: the claim that declining to shake hands is shunning. Hands spread disease. Semmelweis 101. When the means of transmission are unknown ... and of course, AIDS sufferers often had other diseases because of their weakened immune systems. Perhaps in those circumstances Elton John or Ann Althouse would have let their children shake hands, but some of us would be more prudent.

We isolated a SARS carrier in our house, and she had to wear a mask and eat separately for a week. This was the result of a public health directive. But she did not feel shunned, nor did we feel we were shunning her. As it turned out SARS was not such a threat. But no one knew that at the time. In his next book Elton John can excoriate us.

FullMoon said...

Even their Methodist church turned its back on them: when it came to the blessing at their Easter service, no one in the congregation would shake Ryan’s hand and say ‘peace be with you’ to him.

Contradictory. Obviously Ryan was allowed to be in church with everyone else.


BTW, what happened to the measles hysteria? Seems like only yesterday.

Openidname said...

It's only natural to shun sick people. I wouldn't be surprised if it's an evolved trait. People with this trait are less likely to get sick and die, it's that simple.

Yes, you can overcome this tendency, but it takes an effort of will. People who overcome it are probably to be commended, but people who don't shouldn't be demonized.

cubanbob said...

Pakistan can fund a large standing Army, can find money for terrorists, money for nuclear weapons and planes and missiles but it can't provide for the basic medical service for its poor.

Maillard Reactionary said...

Did Ghangrho train in Russia by any chance?

John henry said...

Sounds like the Pakistan authorities don't really think the doctor is the problem:

The doctor recently renewed his medical certificate and now works as a general practitioner at a government hospital on the outskirts of Ratodero, despite laws that make the reuse of syringes an offense that is not eligible for bail

John Henry

John henry said...

Funny how nobody, including Ann, ever talks about how PDJT, with the help of Gilead, basically eliminated HIV in the US.

One would think that would be a big fucking deal.

Oh well, maybe not.

Just a bunch of gays and druggies. Who gives 2 shits about them? Other than president trump.

John Henry

Narayanan said...

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-health/hiv

Hope they can help.

John henry said...

Remember back when 9 or of 10 people in Africa had AIDS?

Turned out that they didn't. WHo had the Bangui diagnosis which said that if you had certain symptoms like diarrhea, cough and some other stuff you had AIDS.

When they finally actually started testing for HIV, everybody got better all of the sudden.

Still sick and dying of the same diseases africans have been dying from for 10,000 years. But not AIDS.

John Henry

Nanonymous said...

My privy and well drain into each other
After the custom of Christendie. . . .
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
Kipling

There is more - much more - and I’m not even quoting “The Gods of the Copybook Headings.” Kipling knew a thing or two about the area from his residence in Lahore, and I wouldn’t guess that he particularly disliked the inhabitants. His thoughts pertain not to a people per se, but to something more timeless. The sheer, awful, brutal physical world is there whether you understand how it works or not. If any place in the world has been “re-barbarized” over the past half-century, Pakistan has. Jinnah was a reasonable, modern, and relatively rational guy, who disliked Gandhi’s medieval obscurantism intensely. It’s tragic that he lacked the imagination to see what his vision for Pakistan would or could become.

Ray - SoCal said...

Pakistan has a huge corruption issue.

And in neighboring Afghanistan there is a pederasty issue.

And how do you know what is real, from the reported news in Pakistan. Where reporting the wrong news may get the reporter killed.

And agree on the military getting a huge chunk of the budget, and most of the rich don’t pay taxes.

John henry said...

The reason for my comment on the African AIDS non-diagnosis was because the first question that came to mind reading the story was how HIV was diagnosed. Was it an actual test or was it the WHO's Bangui diagnosis?

From the story they seem to be doing actual HIV tests.

For those not familiar, AIDS is any of about 30 different diseases PLUS testing positive for HIV.

Tuberculosis and testing HIV positive is AIDS. The same tuberculosis without being HIV positive is "just" tuberculosis. A horrible disease in its own right but not AIDS.

John Henry

Ken B said...

Here's a puzzler.
Which is better, Baghdadi dead and ISIS terrorists escaped, or Baghdadi dead and ISIS terrorists caught?