HANOI, Dec 4 (AFP) - Police in Vietnam have charged a drug addict with causing the death of a six-year-old boy by stabbing him with an HIV-infected needle after a neighbourhood dispute, state media said Wednesday.
Pham Van Thang died on November 25, two years after Nguyen Xuan Truong, 38, an HIV carrier, allegedly injected him with a needle carrying the killer virus.
The incident occured in June 2000 in the northeastern coastal city of Haiphong following a series of quarrels between Truong and the victim's family, the Lao Dong newspaper reported.
Thang's parents sent several letters to police and local authorities urging them to open a criminal investigation into the case, but they were ignored until their son passed away.
Police have charged Truong, who is currently serving a 30-month sentence in a re-education camp for robbery, with "deliberately harming the health of other people". The investigation into the case is still continuing.
There have been several incidents of people being stabbed or threatened with HIV-infected needles across the country this year.
Some 56,495 people are HIV positive in Vietnam, of which 8,451 have developed full blown AIDS and 4,649 people have died from the killer virus, according to the government figures.
However, experts say that the true number of those infected with the virus is at least 200,000, under-reported due to limited testing facilities and a reluctance to admit the full extent of the epidemic.
021204
AF021277
Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2002 - All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission.. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2002. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2002 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
