First Doctor to Report the HIV Outbreak among children in Ratodero, Pakistan: world record set by Dr. Ghulam Shabir Imran Akbar Arbani
"Pakistani doctor Imran Arbani first suspected an HIV outbreak was affecting children in the region where he grew up, " the CBC.ca reports.
“Unless these quack doctors, barbers and dentists are not checked, the number of incidents of H.I.V. infection will continue going up,” said Dr. Imran Akbar Arbani, a local doctor, who had tipped off Mr. Shaikh about the outbreak as he also alerted government authorities, the New York Times reports.
In February, Dr. Arbani started noticing dozens of children coming to his office with persistent fevers, from newborns to 8-year-olds. “In Pakistan, the government does not act unless there is a national uproar sparked by media coverage,” Dr. Arbani said, explaining why he was quick to tell Mr. Shaikh, the journalist, when he realized the scale of infection.
"At first, the government was slow to respond to Ratodero’s outbreak and barely had the resources to test residents and treat the sick. Teams of international health workers from various countries came to the city to help, and the World Health Organization donated hundreds of testing kits, The New York Times reports.
Testing centers were set up in government buildings, while dozens of yellow tents sprouted up across the city to deal with the influx of terrified residents eager to be tested.
Still, with not even a quarter of the city’s population yet tested for the virus, officials are dreading that the real number of infected is much higher than the 1,112 confirmed cases so far.
Since 2003, there have been eight H.I.V. outbreaks in Pakistan. And Ratodero had been the site of one before: In 2016, an outbreak hit some 1,500 adult men
Sikandar Memon, head of the AIDS Control Program in Sindh province, said officials have screened 13,800 people from Larkana and 410 children and 100 adults tested positive for HIV, the Associated Press reports.
Nationwide, Pakistan’s Health Ministry has registered over 23,000 HIV cases. Pakistani health officials have said HIV is usually spread in the country by using un-sterilized syringes.
Authorities say the HIV outbreak in Larkana was apparently started when local physician Muzaffar Ghangharo, who has AIDS, infected patients in early April.
The GUINNESS WORLD RECORD for the Heaviest kidney stone was set by Wazir Muhammand s/o Abbass Ali Jagirani (Pakistan), who had a kidney stone weighing 620 g (21. 87 oz) removed from his right kidney at the Nephro-Urology Chandka Medical College Hospital, Sindh, Pakistan, on 24 June 2008. The procedure was carried out by Dr. Ghulam Shabir Imran Akbar Arbani and Dr. Malik Hussain.
GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS lso recognized the world record for the fastest growing disease in the world today; it is human immunodeficency virus (HIV), which saw an increase in 2005 of approximately 4.9 million newly-infected people of which 700,000 were children under the age of 15 years.
