A third round of tests has confirmed that at least 90 villagers in a small rural community in northwest Cambodia have contracted HIV in an unexplained and panic-inducing mass infection.
Dr Didier Fontenille, director of the Pasteur Institute in Cambodia, said that samples sent from Roka commune in Battambang province, where the unusually high number of infections were first detected this month, have tested positive for the virus.
“It has been confirmed three times by different techniques. Around 90 [people] have tested positive,” Fontenille said.
More samples taken from residents in the area will be tested on Saturday, he said.
Officials from Cambodia’s National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD said this week that 106 villagers, including elderly people and 19 children under the age of 15, had tested positive for HIV in the Roka area alone, a community of about 9,000 rural farmers.
As news of the infections spread and suspicion falling on a local health provider who treated residents over several years, alarm set it and local villagers flocked to health centres to be tested for the virus.
Somewhat complicating the situation, Hun Sen, Cambodia’s prime minister, said on Thursday in a speech that he did not believe that so many had been infected with HIV, speculating that unreliable testing was likely to blame.
“It is not that we do not believe in our doctors and our equipment, but it is hard to believe,” he said.
Source: Punchng
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