(Image: WikiMedia Commons)
An undercover investigation using hidden camera shots has allegedly revealed a critical medical safety breach in a government hospital in Pakistan causing concern on unsafe injection practices that could have caused a huge health crisis. The probe, which filmed more than 32 hours of video footage within THQ Hospital in Taunsa, showed that there were recurrent contraventions of fundamental hygiene standards. As per the results mentioned in the report, such unsafe behaviors have potentially put a number of children at risk of life threatening infections such as HIV and this has raised alarm among health professionals and governments.
Records of provincial screening programmes, individual clinics and leaked police records paint a disheartening picture of the outbreak. This is after at least 331 children in Taunsa were HIV-positive in the period between November 2024 and October 2025. Further examination shows that most of these infections could not have been mother to child transmitted. Out of the 97 families tested, it was only in four families that the mothers were found HIV positive implying that there was another potential source of transmission. This has enhanced the suspicions that unsafe medical practices especially in the hospital setting may have been the key contributor to the spread of the virus.
The video allegedly depicts medical staff repurposing syringes on various patients, as well as withdrawing medicine on shared multi dose vials, which greatly adds to the chance of contamination. In one case, a nurse was caught on camera picking up a used syringe with leftover liquid and handing it to a colleague to be reused, which is a direct contravention of some of the most fundamental medical safety guidelines. Other scenes depict employees injecting without gloves, leaving used needles on surfaces, and not disposing of dangerous medical wastes. Parents of the affected children have also complained that they have seen syringes being used by different patients and have cited systemic negligence.
BBC report indicates that in the centre of the tragedy is the eight year old Mohammed Amin who succumbed to death soon after the diagnosis of HIV. According to his family, he experienced a high fever and excruciating pain during his last days. His sister Asma soon followed, and the family thought that the two were both infected during a regular medical check up at the hospital. The outbreak was initially reported when a local doctor Dr Gul Qaisrani realized that there was an increase in cases of HIV among children, most of whom had been treated in the same hospital. Although the medical superintendent of the hospital, Dr Qasim Buzdar, has cast doubt on the validity of the footage, inquiries are ongoing as demands to hold those responsible continue to mount together with the need to reform healthcare.
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