Voice of America - , 2004
VOA News

Afghanistan's Health Ministry has announced the first recorded AIDS deaths in the country.

Dr. Naqibullah Safi, head of the health ministry's HIV department, says a 45-year-old man and two of his children have died recently of AIDS in a Kabul hospital. He said the three are among 200 to 300 Afghans infected with HIV, the virus that causes the disease.

Dr. Safi did not explain how the family got infected. But intravenous drug use and the lack of information about AIDS are seen as the most common reasons for the spread of the deadly virus in the war-torn country.

The United Nations warned last year that a rise in intravenous drug use placed Afghanistan at risk of an AIDS epidemic.

Some information for this report provided by AFP.

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