Twenty two people contract HIV in Kyrgyz hospitals

BISHKEK, Sep 8 (Reuters) Seventeen babies and five adults have contracted HIV through infected blood transfusions in Kyrgyzstan, a senior health official said.

Sagynaly Mamatov, head of the state AIDS watchdog, said yesterday transfusions took place in a number of hospitals in the south of the Central Asian state.

''We have discovered a total of 22 HIV-infected people in the Osh region,'' he told Reuters. ''That is, 17 children aged up to two years old, four of their mothers and one medical worker.'' He said the infections were most probably caused by transfusions of blood that had not been tested for HIV, although some babies may have got the virus from their mothers.

Local hospital officials could not be reached for comment.

Last year more than 100 children were infected through rogue blood transfusions in neighbouring Kazakhstan. Ten babies have died.

Unlike oil producer Kazakhstan, accused by some health campaigners of not doing enough to improve hospitals, Kyrgyzstan is an impoverished mountainous country plagued by instability and burdened with a huge foreign debt.

HIV/AIDS levels have skyrocketed across Central Asia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, mainly among drug addicts and people in prisons. The region lies on the main heroin trafficking route from Afghanistan to Europe.

Reuters SW GC0856