HIV Still in Focus

The NY Times follows up on that tragic HIV trial in Shykment, in which at least 100 children were infected with HIV when they received tainted blood transfusions. While that would be a tragic example of how an underfunded medical system can ruin lives, it turns out the problem runs much deeper. The questions raised by a commenter in my last point on this trial are actually answered, at least to a degree.

Are donors paid? Perhaps. At the least, there seems to have grown a racket between doctors and blood banks to perform unnecessary blood transfusions for a hefty profit.

What’s with all the transfusions? A combination of over-prescription by doctors and an irrational demand fueled by old wive’s tales about the magical curative properties of fresh blood. You know, like vampires.

It seems that, very much like in Africa, sloppy medicine (prescribing blood for pneumonia) is mixing with dangerous folk legends (actually taking blood for things like pneumonia will cure it) to create a massive risk for HIV infection, since Kazakhstan does not have the resources to properly screen its blood supply. Even if it did, the situation there is far too risky—even with the best pre-screening at donation centers, the best screening in the blood banks, and so on, the chance of a chance infection rises dramatically with the number of transfusions.

I wonder how much a push for basic health education would help to alleviate the problem. If it is both supply and demand driven—in which folk legends about the need for blood dovetail with the need of doctors to supplement their low incomes—then simple education may not help much. Regardless of the eventual solution, though, it is clear the current system doesn’t work, and needs drastic reform.

This post was written by...

Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.

Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust

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