Paul Haviland, a translator living with HIV, champions the cause of six medics facing the firing squad for ‘deliberately’ infecting 400 children with HIV
Amid the unending stream of news about HIV/Aids this year, one item could easily have been missed. It surfaced briefly in May and left many, including myself, incredulous, intrigued and deeply concerned.
It was about five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who, after five years’ imprisonment, were sentenced to death by firing squad in Benghazi, Libya, on charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with HIV at the hospital where they worked. Behind the surreal headline and Cold War plot line is a story that sheds light on how attitudes to HIV interact with politics and justice.
Four months ago I and my Bulgarian friends in London launched a campaign to heighten awareness of the ‘Benghazi Six’ and raise funds for their families. It soon became clear their plight touched some very raw nerves indeed.
This is because the story is deeply entangled in the complicated relations Libya has with the West. As such, it has attracted the attention of the US State Department, the UN, and Tony Blair. Even the price of oil is involved, given Colonel Gaddafi’s recent charm offensive towards the West, and the West’s barely disguised eagerness to improve relations with his gas-and-oil-rich land. Libya’s mercurial leader also wasted no time in accusing the six of working for the CIA and Israel in a bio-terrorist plot to destroy his country’s youth.
At the very heart of the matter is an instance of mass HIV infection in a hospital setting that raises crucial questions about how HIV/Aids intersects with politics, education, justice and the vulnerabilities of people in the developing world. And these questions have to be asked, and answered, if we are to learn anything from the case of the Benghazi Six.
The phenomenon of ‘iatrogenic’ HIV infection (occurring in healthcare settings) remains largely buried. A few experts have highlighted apparent long-term failure by the WHO, UNAIDS and others to address the risks of iatrogenic infection linked to large-scale outbreaks in Russia, Mexico, Romania, China and Egypt. But why has exhaustive scientific work on this not yet been done?
Administration of justice is increasingly entangled in the HIV pandemic. In the Benghazi trial, evidence from Dr Luc Montagnier and others showing conclusively that the outbreak began before the Bulgarian nurses arrived in the country, was ignored. The court also mistranslated the word ‘recombinant’ to imply the accused were involved in a Frankenstein-like ‘manipulation’ of the virus for nefarious ends.
Such grotesque procedural errors might seem unlikely in American or British courts, but can we always be sure that in a similar medical emergency, scientific evidence would be examined dispassionately? Take recent prosecutions for deliberate HIV transmission by ‘rogue’ individuals who also happen to be immigrants and members of marginalised groups. Can we be sure our prejudices and those of the judicial system have not played a part in such high-profile cases?
And what of continuing HIV/Aids stigma in the Muslim world, Africa, India and China where the virus is indelibly associated with social and religious taboos of ‘illicit’ sex - homosexuality chief among them? How are at-risk populations to be protected when it is culturally acceptable to blame ‘the other’ rather than look to the failings of one’s own beliefs and practices?
Finally, what are the implications for ‘first world’ medical assistance to ‘third-world’ countries where HIV is the principal health concern? Would you encourage your sister, the nurse, or your mother, the doctor, to work in a developing country, knowing the additional risks they could face?
I leave you with many unanswered questions; such is the nature of this exceedingly complex case. For my part, I will continue to do what I can to focus attention on the plight of the medics. Caught up in a tragedy not of their making, the families face each new day with the fear their loved ones may not be alive by the end of it. My hope is that science, politics, public opinion and the generosity of ordinary individuals will combine to free them from their waking nightmare of anguish and dread.
• Bulgarian Medics Solidarity Project. www.nishand.org
