Cambodian prosecutors say they have charged an unlicensed medical practitioner with murder, alleging he spread HIV among at least 106 villagers in the country’s remote north-west.
Authorities detected the local epidemic of HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, on December 9 when they started testing in the community in Battambang province and found children as young as two and people in their 80s had contracted the virus.
They were alerted after a 74-year-old man tested positive in November and started convincing others who had also visited the same practitioner, 55-year-old Yem Chrin, to get tested.
“We charged [Chrin] with spreading the HIV virus to others, brutal murder and operating a medical service without a licence,” said Nuon San, the provincial court’s chief prosecutor.
Chrin admitted to routinely re-using syringes and was a well-respected local doctor who provided cheap services to the poor, according to provincial deputy police chief Chet Vanny.
“He used the same syringes again and again. And he even let villagers owe him the money for the services,” he said. He added the accused was also regarded as having healing powers.
The case is a blow to Cambodia’s so far successful efforts to cut the rate of HIV infections after the virus spread almost uncontrollably in the impoverished country during the 1990s.
“After I gave birth to my child, I went to this doctor all the time,” said a 20-year old mother, who tested positive for HIV and asked not to be named.
“I suspect the virus may have been transmitted through injections or intravenously through a drip.”
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention and three UN agencies are assisting the government in the case.
Reuters