Friday, December 19, 2014

"Doctors Without Licenses": At Least 105 Infected with AIDS in Cambodia Due to Alleged Medical Negligence

12/19/2014

BANGKOK – At least 105 people, 19 of them children, have tested positive for AIDS/HIV in Cambodia where police are investigating an unlicensed doctor suspected of being responsible for spreading the infection, local media reported Thursday.

All of those infected, who belong to the Roka community in Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia, were found to have the HIV virus when the local health center began testing for it earlier this month, the Cambodia Daily reported.

The police questioned Yem Chrin, an unlicensed doctor, trained in the 1990s in a refugee camp after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, who had been practicing in this village of some 9,000 inhabitants for 20 years.

Several villagers accused the doctor of using the same needle to treat several patients while others pointed to a vaccination program of the health ministry as a possible cause of the infections, an allegation which the authorities have denied.

Programs for HIV and AIDS prevention have been remarkably successful in reducing the incidence of the disease in Cambodia which saw a large number of cases during the 1990s.


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