Pakistan: Hospitals putting children at risk of HIV
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Outbreaks of HIV have become regular occurrences in Pakistan. And too frequently it is the children who suffer. In the city of Taunsa, for example, children have tested positive for HIV while their parents have not. So what has been going on? Ghazal Abbasi investigates what and who is to blame. With the help of a staff insider and undercover recording in the city’s main hospital, the BBC finds shocking lapses in medical protocol. Medicine vials and syringes are often reused for different children. Cross-contamination seems inevitable. But the local authorities deny the hospital is at the centre of the problem. This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.8 | These children are innocent. |
| 0:13.2 | They are flowers. Why are they catching it? |
| 0:17.9 | Adults should suffer from HIV, not children. |
| 0:23.3 | I'm visiting a community in central Pakistan |
| 0:26.1 | where something terrible is happening to the children. |
| 0:30.5 | I'm Gazala Bassi and this is the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:35.9 | Over the past year, more than 300 children in the city of Thansa have tested positive for HIV. |
| 0:43.7 | Parents like Euchar don't have HIV and can't understand how their children are getting infected. |
| 0:50.6 | I'm missing him. |
| 0:58.2 | I don't understand what the reason is, how it transmits. |
| 1:00.7 | One of my sons died. |
| 1:02.4 | He had HIV. |
| 1:04.9 | He is my other son. |
| 1:10.0 | Ishaad's surviving son, Hizzer, is also HIV positive. For now, medication is keeping him alive. |
| 1:15.6 | I don't know if it happened in the hospital. You only took them to Donsa, only to that hospital. |
| 1:24.2 | Yes, yes, Tonsa. Tonsa Hospital is a government hospital. During his treatment, he got so many injections. |
| 1:33.6 | When we came back home, his condition got worse again. There were also so many staff there who said, |
| 1:41.4 | these syringes are being reused. |
| 1:46.0 | Oshad feels powerless to act on his suspicions about the hospital |
| 1:49.9 | and the local government says there's no proof children are infected with HIV there. |
| 1:57.3 | For BBCI and assignment, |
... |
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