Health News
2006-08-12
Libyan HIV trial
continues
The trial of four
Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of
deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV
continu
The trial of four
Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of
deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV
continued this week, with authorities from the
hospital where the infections occurred testifying that
the health workers did intend to infect the children,
Reuters Health reports. The Libyan experts testified that
they stand by a 61-page report they submitted in 2003
that says the HIV transmissions resulted from a
deliberate act. The Libyan experts also testified that
banks containing HIV-infected blood plasma and a
genetically modified form of HIV were discovered at the home
of Kristiana Vulcheva, one of the nurses.
Judge Mahmoud
Haouissa, the presiding judge on the three-member tribunal
of the Tripoli criminal court, refused to allow testimony
from international HIV experts that would have refuted
the Libyan experts' claims. It’s unclear
whether Haouissa will allow the testimony later in the
trial.
The health care
workers were originally convicted in 2004 of infecting
426 children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi and were
sentenced to death, but a Libyan judge overturned the
death sentences and ordered a retrial in December
2005.
Health officials
testified in the original trial that the HIV infections
originating at the Benghazi hospital occurred before the
health workers arrived there and were likely the
result of poor sanitary conditions, particularly the
reuse of medical equipment that hadn’t been properly
cleaned. The health workers, under arrest since 1999, say
they were tortured while in prison so that authorities
could wring confessions out of them. (The
Advocate)
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