Medical experts in Karachi have urged the government to declare a national health emergency over rising HIV cases, particularly among children. They also called for stricter infection control, enforcement of single-use syringe laws and better disease data.
KARACHI: Medical experts on Saturday called on the government to declare a national health emergency over what they described as the dangerous spread of HIV, saying repeated outbreaks linked to healthcare facilities were increasingly affecting children.
Speaking at a press conference organised by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (Pima), the experts also demanded strict enforcement of basic infection control measures and the law on single-use syringes. They further urged the creation of a national dashboard carrying credible data on major infectious diseases, including HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and mpox, saying such a platform could support an evidence-based response to the country’s health challenges.
The briefing brought together representatives of the Pakistan Paediatric Association-Sindh, Pakistan Society of Physicians, Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan, and Pakistan Medical Association. The participants agreed that disease prevention was largely absent from the mandates of provincial health bodies responsible for providing free diagnosis and treatment for HIV and other infectious diseases. They also stressed the need for increased health funding to ensure medical supplies and infection control protocols.
Dr Atif Hafeez Siddiqui, a senior professor associated with Dow University of Health Sciences, said low public spending was undermining implementation of safety measures. “How could you implement these protocols in a country where the total health allocation remains critically low, consistently under one per cent of the GDP? Where hospitals operate either without or minimum supplies of basic infection control tools such as disinfectants, gloves or even clean water,” he asked.
He said the recent rise in HIV cases, particularly among children and low-risk groups, pointed to serious weaknesses in the healthcare system that could not be ignored in a country already facing multiple public health burdens.
Concerns over children’s treatment and unsafe practices
Dr Fatima Mir, who heads the paediatric infectious disease section at the Aga Khan University Hospital, said a large number of children from Sindh and other parts of the country were arriving at the hospital’s HIV facility with severe illness. “Poor parents are being forced to travel to Karachi as the treatment of children with complex infections is not available in rural areas,” she said, adding that treating a child with HIV was 10 times harder than treating an adult with the same infection.
According to Dr Mir, the spread of HIV among children in Sindh was occurring mainly because of contaminated injections and unsafe medical practices, which she said were entirely preventable. She said the country now needed to move from simply setting up more units to ensuring quality care.
“We should ask why only one to two hospitals in the country are internationally accredited? We have programmes to provide free HIV diagnosis and treatment, but there is no policy and action in place to protect the lives of millions of people in the country who are still non-infected,” she said.
On concerns about the scale of the HIV challenge and limited access to official data, Dr Mir said collecting information alone was not enough unless experts interpreted it and used it to shape policy. “Government departments carry out investigations in disease outbreaks, but these internal reports are lost in the dust. All stakeholders, including the general public, have the right to know how the outbreak occurred and who is responsible.”
She also urged medical societies to develop a cost-efficient infection control protocol for all healthcare providers.
Karachi outbreak highlighted
Dr Samreen Sarfaraz, chair of Infection Control Services and senior consultant at the Indus Hospital, said Pakistan was witnessing a rapid increase in HIV cases and deaths had declined in several other countries. “A serious health crisis was recently identified in November 2025 among children as young as one year in Karachi, where more than 15 children attending a health facility in the Site town were diagnosed with HIV, with at least two fatalities,” she said, adding that the number of affected children was still increasing as screening continued.
She said the Karachi episode might represent only a fraction of a wider problem, with unsafe practices at public and private health facilities contributing to what she described as a hidden, growing healthcare-linked HIV epidemic. She added that healthcare-associated HIV outbreaks had also been reported in Taunsa, Multan and Larkana.
The speakers at the press conference included Dr Syed Ahmer Hamid, head of PIMA Karachi, Dr Waseem Jamalvi, head of PPA Sindh, Dr Qaiser Jamal, head of PSP-Sindh, and Dr Asma Naseem of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation.
