Islamabad: The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has accused the federal health ministry of concealing key information on the country’s HIV situation and presenting unreliable and incomplete data to parliament, warning that weak transparency and poor regulatory oversight are crippling Pakistan’s response to a fast-spreading epidemic and putting patients, particularly children, at continued risk.
The criticism followed a recent briefing by the Ministry of National Health Services to the National Assembly Standing Committee on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, where lawmakers expressed concern over gaps in provincial data, missing patient records and weak follow-up mechanisms in the official submission on HIV. The PMA said the manner in which information was shared with the committee reflected a wider “culture of concealment” that was undermining parliamentary oversight and allowing failing systems to escape accountability.
In its statement, the doctors’ body cited the recent infection of 84 children with HIV at a Karachi hospital as a stark example of the consequences of regulatory collapse and poor enforcement of biosafety protocols. The association said the outbreak, which lawmakers were told was linked to unsafe injection practices, was not an isolated medical incident but evidence of systemic failure in healthcare oversight. It added that the reuse of syringes in clinical settings amounted to criminal negligence and demanded immediate legal action against those responsible.
The PMA expressed alarm over serious gaps in official HIV data presented to parliament, noting that hundreds of reported cases from Kot Momin in Sargodha were missing from the national dataset shared with the standing committee, while no updated HIV figures were provided from Balochistan. It also flagged the absence of treatment progress reports for 31 registered patients at Nishtar Hospital, Multan, warning that weak patient tracking systems were allowing individuals to fall out of care without explanation.
Doctors said unreliable reporting systems presented to legislators were effectively blinding those tasked with oversight of the health sector. The PMA warned that policies built on hidden or incomplete facts were bound to fail, arguing that credible data was the backbone of any effective national response to HIV.
The association further pointed to the rising number of HIV-positive cases in Sindh and Punjab, which it said reflected the failure to enforce basic biosafety standards across public and private healthcare facilities. According to the PMA, unsafe injection practices, including the reuse of syringes, continue to drive new infections despite repeated warnings and guidelines, highlighting deep-rooted enforcement failures within the health system.
The PMA also questioned the transparency and impact of spending under the National AIDS Programme, noting that while officials cite annual per-patient expenditures, this investment was not reflected in official documentation, reporting systems or the quality of services experienced by patients on the ground. With tens of thousands of patients reportedly registered for antiretroviral therapy, doctors say gaps in monitoring and documentation continue to obscure the real performance of the programme.
Calling for urgent corrective action, the association demanded a transparent, high-level investigation into regulatory and programme failures that allowed unsafe practices to persist, including accountability of programme heads and officials whose negligence contributed to the Karachi outbreak. It urged that the reuse of syringes be treated as a criminal offence and called for the strictly monitored, nationwide enforcement of auto-disable syringes in all public and private healthcare facilities.
The PMA also called for an independent audit of HIV surveillance and reporting systems presented to parliament, a review of the qualifications and performance of regulatory council members overseeing healthcare standards, and the establishment of a robust, real-time digital tracking system for HIV patients to ensure continuity of care and prevent patients from disappearing from official records.
The association said it stood in solidarity with the families of the 84 affected children and warned that unless authorities move beyond routine assurances and monitoring towards prosecutions and structural reform, similar outbreaks would continue to occur across the country.
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