An unlicensed doctor has been charged with causing an HIV outbreak in a remote village in northwestern Battambang province, local media report.
More than 800 panicked residents of Rokar village sought testing after reports of infections emerged last week. Some 106 people tested positive for HIV, according to the National AIDS authority.
A provincial court has laid three charges against the unlicensed doctor, Yem Chroeum, including intentionally transmitting the HIV virus and running a clinic without permission from the Ministry of Health, police said.
The police confirmed Chroeum used contaminated needles.
"After questioning Yem Chroeum, he confessed he did order his son-in-law to burn down the evidence behind his house, and (treated) patients with negligence, as well as using the same needles to treat them," Chet Vanny, deputy police chief of Battambang province told the Phnom Penh Post.
Yem Chroeum, 55, was facing the prospect of life in prison but his murder charge was reduced by the court to a lesser manslaughter offence, his defence lawyer said. “My client still insists he is innocent,” lawyer Em Sovann told AFP by telephone after the verdict was announced. “I will represent him if he wants to appeal this conviction,” he added. The rural doctor was convicted of infecting locals in the remote village of Roka in western Battambang province by reusing dirty needles. For millions of Cambodians, especially the poor and those in isolated regions, unlicensed doctors are the only realistic healthcare option for everyday ailments. World Bank figures say Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest nations, has just 0.2 doctors for every 100,000 people, on a par with Afghanistan.
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