ASTANA, Sept 20, 2006 (AFP) - Kazakh Health Minister Erbolat Dosayev and Bolat Jylkyshyev, governor of southern Kazakhstan, were sacked on Wednesday following the deaths of four children who were infected with the HIV virus at a paediatric hopital.
The four victims were among a group of at least 55 children and one mother who were infected at the hospital with the virus that can lead to AIDS.
"Health Minister Dosayev and regional governor Jylkyshyev were dismissed because of serious breaches of conduct linked to this affair," said Nurlan Abdirov, deputy secretary of Kazakhstan's Security Council.
Abdirov was speaking to reporters following a meeting of the Security Council with President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The investigation into how the victims became infected with the HIV virus at the hospital in southern Kazakhstan was under Nazarbayev's "personal control", Abdirov added.
The presidency released a statement after the meeting confirming the decision.
"According to the work of several commissions... the contamination very probably took place during blood transfusions and by non-sterilised medical instruments," the statement said, confirming earlier comments made by Dosayev.
Cases of "negligence" and "breaches of duty" were displayed at all levels of the health system in the region of southern Kazakhstan and offences noted in 41 percent of blood donation treatment centres in the country, it said.
Earlier this week Dosayev accused the paediatric hospital in question of negligence during blood transfusions and for repeatedly using disposable and unsterilised syringes. But the source of the contamination has not officially been established and several hospitals could be implicated.
The first cases of HIV infection among young children hospitalised in the south of the country appeared in May and an investigation was launched in July to establish the cause of infection.
Health authorities have ordered HIV-screening for almost 12,500 children who have been hospitalised in the region.
At least 2,700 of them are likely to have come into direct contact with the virus, according to the AIDS prevention centre in Shymkent, capital of southern Kazakhstan. The centre told AFP it feared more cases of infection would come to light.
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