KARACHI: The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has called for immediate steps to address HIV outbreaks in Karachi and other parts of the province, warning that lack of government seriousness might turn the crisis into an irreversible national humanitarian catastrophe.
In a statement, the association expressed serious concern over what it described as an unprecedented healthcare crisis across Sindh.
‘The provincial healthcare system has broken down due to negligence, lack of vision, and corrupt practices of the health department. Rather than strengthening public institu-tions, the government has abandoned its constitutional responsibility, outsourcing facilities to entities like Peoples’ Primary Healthcare Initiative and non-government organisations, leaving the poor at the mercy of an exploitative system,’ it says.
The most terrifying manifestation of this collapse, the association says, is the twin paediatric HIV outbreaks spanning both rural and urban Sindh; 73 innocent children tested positive for HIV in June 2026 alone at the Chandka Medical College Children’s Hospital, predominantly aged between five months and eight years from Khairpur.
‘Compounding this nightmare, a catastrophic outbreak has been con-firmed at Karachi’s Valika hospital, with official data compiling at least 80 paediatric HIV cases. Clinical data confirms that this explosion is overwhelmingly driven by gross medical negligence, unsafe clinical practices, the routine reuse of syringes by quacks and a total failure of blood transfusion screening protocols,’ the association says.
It questions the government performance in healthcare despite making budgetary allocations of billions of rupees over the years.
‘Public health facilities face visible decay. At the Larkana AntiRetroviral Treatment (ART) centre, immuno-compromised children are treated under collapsing roofs without a pharmacist or junior medical staff.The association has also raised alarm over the persistent acute shortage of life-saving medicines for Hepatitis B and C, along with specialised treatments for Tuberculosis (TB) and cancer.
‘These medicines are entirely out of stock across public facilities, leaving impoverished patients abandoned by the state,’ it says, regretting that while the ruling elite travels abroad for treatments, the public is being crushed by inflation and forced to pay out-of-pocket for basic healthcare.
Listing its demands, the association called upon the government to take direct, sovereign ownership of public hospitals instead of delegating responsibility to private entities.’Instantly restock out-of-stock cancer, TB, and hepatitis medications, and dispatch paediatric HIV diagnostic kits to peripheral districts.
Execute high-level, transparent criminal inquiries into institutional negligence,’ it said.
It also sought a ‘relentless, zero tolerance crackdown’ on quacks by law enforcement and the Sindh Healthcare Commission (SHCC).
‘The government must depoliticise and restore the fulllegal authorities of health monitoring bodies, and enforce strict criminal penalties for non-certified labs or blood banks.
Immediately inject massive emergency funds into public sector hospitals to fix collapsing infrastructure and fill severe personnel shortages, it concluded.