BBC: Reuse of Syringes in Pakistani Hospital Caused HIV Epidemic Among Children

The same syringes were used in a hospital in Pakistan amid an HIV epidemic among children, an investigation by the BBC has revealed.

In the city of Taunsa, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, BBC Eye reports that 331 children were identified as HIV positive between November 2024 and October 2025.

When a doctor from a private clinic linked the epidemic to the THQ Taunsa hospital at the end of 2024, local authorities promised to „restore order“ and suspended the hospital’s medical director in March 2025.

But the BBC Eye investigation can now confirm that the dangerous practice of administering injections continued for months afterward.

During 32 hours of undercover filming at the end of 2025, 10 instances were recorded in which syringes were reused for multi-dose medication vials, which could have led to contamination of the medicine.

It can be seen how medicine from the same vial is given to another child… It is not known whether any of these children were HIV positive, but this practice creates an obvious risk of virus transmission, the BBC reports.

„Even if a new needle is used, the syringe can contain the virus, which is then transmitted to the patient,“ says Dr. Altaf Ahmed, a microbiologist and one of Pakistan’s leading infectious disease experts, after viewing the undercover footage.

The BBC also filmed staff, including a doctor, administering medication to patients without sterile gloves 66 times, while another expert assessed that the footage points to broader failures in infection control training in Pakistan.

It was also recorded how a nurse searched a medical waste box without sterile gloves.

But when the BBC showed the footage to the new hospital director, Qasim Buzdar, he refused to accept that the footage was authentic.

He claimed it could have been made before he took office, or that the footage could have been staged, and insisted that his hospital is safe for children.

Gul Kaisrani, a doctor at a local private clinic, was the first to notice the epidemic at the end of 2024 after observing an increase in the number of children passing through his clinic who tested positive for HIV.

BBC Eye managed to collect data from the Punjab provincial HIV screening program, from private clinics, and from a set of data leaked from the police, to identify 331 children positive for HIV in the city of Taunsa.

Of a sample of 97 children with HIV whose families were tested, only four of their mothers also tested positive. This indicates that a very small number of cases were caused by mother-to-child transmission.

In a statement, the local government said that „no confirmed epidemiological evidence has definitively established that this hospital is the source of the infection“.

It was added that a joint mission of UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the regional health ministry aims to prevent „the role of unregulated private practices“ and „uncontrolled blood transfusions“.

The BBC also points out that children who become infected with HIV face stigma that makes life more difficult and that, in addition to lifelong treatment for a virus they should never have been exposed to, they often remain isolated.