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Iraqis living with HIV/AIDS and their families are demanding improved treatment facilities and larger monetary stipends.
“What we’re currently receiving from the government isn’t enough to support our families,” said Abu Khalid, a 41 year-old HIV-positive patient in the capital, Baghdad. “Because our health conditions are very delicate, we can’t look for work.”
According to Dr Wadah Hamed, director of the AIDS Research Centre (ARC) in Baghdad, 35 new cases of HIV/AIDS have been reported since October 2005. Ever since the first case came to light in 1986, nearly 480 cases have been reported to the health ministry, including a number who have since succumbed to the illness.
Today, the centre is treating 85 patients, both Iraqi and foreign. “Between foreigners and Iraqis, the situation is getting critical,” said Hamed. “More investment should be made in this area.” Foreigners who are HIV positive are usually deported from the country.
The ARC provides patients with free anti-retro viral treatment, supplied by the World Health Organization through the health ministry. “Patients in our centre are treated for free,” said Hamed. “But the monthly stipend given to patients – the equivalent of about US $50 – isn’t enough for their extra expenses and must be raised.”
According to Hamed, 65 percent of recorded cases were attributable to infected blood transfusions, while 30 percent were through sexual transmission (heterosexual or homosexual). Roughly five percent were contracted through mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy. “We’re observing a change in the main route of the infection, which before was through blood transfusion,” said Hamed. “Now, sexual transmission is on the rise, and there is a serious lack of prevention programmes.”
In a related development, haemophilic patients who were infected with the AIDS virus by contaminated blood products are demanding compensation from the French Merieux Company, which produced a blood product that infected more than 70 Iraqis in 1980. According to senior health ministry official Ahmed Shukri, the French company was finally prepared to discuss the compensation issue.
Most of the patients to receive contaminated blood were children under the age of 10 at the time.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
