Sabbah Report » HIV

INJECTION!

Haitham Sabbah — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 18:43:23 +0000

Injection is the real-life story of six health care workers falsely accused and jailed by the Libyan regime, the deplorable conditions that all led to their arrest, and the simple solution that might have prevented not only this injustice, but millions of needless infections.

In Libya in 1999, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were arrested and convicted of infecting over four hundred Libyan children with HIV in a Benghazi hospital. Libyan leader Moammar Khadaffi proclaimed before the trial that the nurses conspired with the American CIA and the Israeli Mossad to maliciously infect the children. The accused, now known as The Benghazi Six, are still in a Libyan prison after they were sentenced to death and pleaded not guilty to charges they defamed two Libyans by accusing them of torture.

In this investigative documentary, Mickey Grant travels to Kenya, Bangkok, Sofia, Benghazi, Tripoli, Rome and London in an attempt to discover the truth. He follows the trail of syringes from hospital to garbage dump, and then back into Africaâ€™s healthcare system.

Youâ€™ll hear moving testimony from leaders of the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, African government officials, the Khadaffi opposition, journalists, medical scientists, doctors, and health care workers. Youâ€™ll also hear from one of the accused, the son of Moammar Kaddafi, a spokesman for the infected children, and other participants.

Could these healthcare workers have committed this horrific crime? Or, are they scapegoats to divert attention from institutional shortcomings? Is Khadaffi responsible for this tragedy? Is re-use of contaminated syringes a common practice in Libya and the rest of Africa? Are safer syringes available, and if so, why arenâ€™t they in common use?

These questions are explored in INJECTION:

Topless virgins vie for Swaziland’s king

Haitham Sabbah — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:39:24 +0000

In the Royal Village of Swaziland - More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swazilandï¿½s 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the worldï¿½s highest HIV/AIDS rate.

King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africaï¿½s last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts.

HIV/AIDS in the Muslim world

Haitham Sabbah — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 22:36:59 +0000

http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050608_eberstadtNBRreport.pdf (PDF File - 828KB)

This report from the US-based National Bureau of Asian Research takes an unusual look at the HIV/AIDS situation in the Muslim world, highlighting the poor surveillance and inadequate knowledge of the extent of HIV/AIDS.

Excerpt:

What is especially troubling to behold is the reluctance to admit that Muslims engage in exactly those same dangerous behaviors that support the transmission and spread of HIV/AIDS elsewhere. This attitude of denial is deeply rooted in the cultural and religious attitudes of Islam and supported by the many authoritarian regimes that populate the Muslim world. This reluctance even to recognize the problem will only accelerate the epidemic and make it more difficult for the international community to provide meaningful support and treatment. Another sobering implication is that HIV/AIDS is now truly a global crisis in terms of both geography and impact.
In North African, Middle Eastern, and Asian Muslim societies, as in many other places affected by HIV, the disease first became common among IVDUs, homosexuals, and prostitutes and their clientele before spreading into the wider community. In 1999 14% of intravenous drug users in Bogor,Indonesia were infected, and 4.5% of people under treatment for a sexually transmitted infection in Qatar were also found to be HIV-positive. In 2000, twenty percent of female commercial sex workers tested in Dhaka, Bangladesh were found to be HIV positive. Most alarmingly perhaps, in that same year one percent of women reporting to a prenatal health clinic in Tamanrasset, Aalgeria for routine checkups tested HIV positive. This indicates that HIV has already become established enough in the community to infect married women with no known risk factors.