A DECADE and roughly 10 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) outbreaks later, it’s clear we’ve learned little, if anything. Consider Taunsa: between November 2024 and October 2025, 331 children tested positive for HIV there. Eight months after a government crackdown on the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, where the medical superintendent was removed and replaced, incriminating undercover footage by the BBC shows not much has changed. Syringes being reused on multiple children, injections administered through clothing, a nurse rummaging through medical waste without gloves — these malpractices have been linked to the outbreak. The video was complemented by parents’ confirmation of the reuse of syringes on their children. In more than half of these cases, a “contaminated needle” was identified as the mode of transmission.

With the health system a vortex of infection, and HIV no longer confined to certain high-risk groups, former SAPM on health, Dr Zafar Mirza, has waved a red flag in a recent tweet: “We are sitting on a generalised epidemic of AIDS in Pakistan”, adding that estimates by UNAIDS point to Pakistan as the country with the fastest-growing number of AIDS cases in Asia.

The all-too-familiar cycle will unfold: eyebrows will rise, outrage will flare and the finger-pointing will begin, followed by inquiries. The media will whip up a frenzy, the government will rap a few knuckles — and before long, it will all fade from our collective memory, until the next outbreak forces it back into view.

This pattern has been observed across four major outbreaks: in 2019, Larkana reported over 1,000 cases, up to 90 per cent of them........

© Dawn