Bloodborne HIV: Don't Get Stuck!

Protect yourself from bloodborne HIV during healthcare and cosmetic services

Burkina Faso: cases and investigations

Unexpected HIV infections in children:  A study among children hospitalized for malnutrition in Bobo Dioulasso during 1989-90 found 48 children aged 12-48 months to be infected with HIV-1 and/or HIV-2 (a less-dangerous relative of HIV-1). Eleven of the 48 children had HIV-negative mothers. The authors of the study attributed 6 of these 11 non-vertical (ie, not mother-to-child) infections to blood transfusions, while the other 5 children “presented a history of multi-injections, suggesting the involvement of this mode of transmission.” Source: Prazuck T, Tall F, Nacro B, et al. HIV infection and severe malnutrition: a clinical and epidemiological study in Burkina Faso. AIDS 1993, 7: 103-108. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8442899 (accessed 14 October 2018).

Unexpected HIV infections in adults: In a 2010 national survey, among young adults aged 15-24 years, the 0.4% (~10/2,630) of self-declared virgin men and women who were HIV-positive exceeded the 0.3% (~17/5,639) HIV-positive for all young adults. Source: Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie et ICF International. Enquête Démographique et de Santé et à Indicateurs Multiples du Burkina Faso 2010. Calverton, Maryland: ICF International, 2012. Available at: https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR256/FR256.pdf (accessed 26 May 2022).

2 responses to “Burkina Faso: cases and investigations”

  1. Anonymous September 29, 2013 at 6:18 pm

    1993? That’s 20 years ago!

    Reply
  2. davidgisselquist October 11, 2013 at 9:57 am

    Hi anonymous. Yes, that report is from 20 years ago! The line of evidence goes back even further. Doctors and scientists studying HIV in Africa have found unexplained HIV in children in sub-Saharan Africa since 1985. And new cases are identified all the time. But no one has traced to find the source of such infections, which is a key to stopping the risks and thereby protecting other children. Governments responded appropriately in Russia in 1988 (finding 265 kids infected through 13 hospitals), in Romania in 1989-91 (finding more than 1,000 kids with HIV from health care), in Libya from 1998 (more than 400 kids), and in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. But why hasn’t any government in sub-Saharan Africa investigated such cases? People who are paid to ensure that healthcare is safe and others who are paid as HIV experts to find and stop risks in Africa have seen the problem for a long, long time. But rather than do what is required to stop the problem, they turn away.

    Reply

Leave a Reply (Please feel free to do so anonymously)

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: