Sign up to see the future, today<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
Nightmarish scenes are playing out in one hospital in Taunsa, a city located in the central Punjab province of Pakistan. <\/p>\n
According to a devastating investigation by the BBC Eye<\/a>, at least 331 children have tested positive for HIV between November 2024 and October 2025. The infections seem to trace back to a single facility, THQ Taunsa Sharif, a public hospital run by provincial authorities<\/a>.<\/p>\n After an undercover filming operation that lasted just 32 hours, the BBC identified 10 separate occasions where the same syringe was reused for the same multi-dose drug vial. Four of those cases involved the same vial given to different children. If just one of those children happens to be positive for HIV, the other three could easily become carriers of the debilitating virus.<\/p>\n \u201cThey filled the same syringe and gave it to one child, then filled it again and gave it to another,\u201d one family member of an HIV-infected child told the news agency.<\/p>\n In other words, hospital staff were using the same syringe on multiple patients, which contaminated the multi-dose vial in turn.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if they have attached a new needle, the back part, which we call the syringe body, has the virus in it, so it will transfer even with a new needle,\u201d Altaf Ahmed, a leading Pakistani infectious disease expert told the BBC.<\/p>\n Though a previous hospital administrator had been sacked after a private clinic uncovered the practice in late 2024, Qasim Buzdar, the newly-installed medical superintendent, claimed the footage might be \u201cstaged,\u201d per the BBC.<\/p>\n Asked what his response would be to any parent worried about the allegations, Buzdar said \u201cI can say to them with certainty, with confidence, that you should get your treatment done at THQ Taunsa.\u201d<\/p>\n