Hospital at centre of child HIV outbreak caught reusing syringes in undercover filming

Warning: This story contains details that readers may find disturbing

Muhammad Amin was eight years old when he died shortly after testing positive for HIV.

His fever was so bad that he insisted on sleeping in the rain, writhing in pain “as if he had been thrown into hot oil,” said his mother Sughra.

“He was fighting with me, but he also loved me,” says 10-year-old Esma, as she kneels at her younger brother’s grave.

Not long after her brother caught the virus, Esma was also diagnosed with HIV. His family believes that both of their children contracted the disease as a result of injections with contaminated needles during routine medical treatment at a government hospital in Taunsa, Pakistan’s Punjab province.

These are two of 331 children BBC Eye found tested positive for HIV in the city between November 2024 and October 2025.

After a doctor at a private clinic linked the outbreak to the hospital at THQ Taunsa in late 2024, local authorities promised a “major crackdown” and sacked the hospital’s medical superintendent in March 2025 – but a BBC Eye investigation can now reveal dangerous injection practices continued months later.

During 32 hours of undercover filming at THQ Taunsa in late 2025, we witnessed syringes being reused in multi-dose medication vials on 10 different occasions, potentially contaminating the medications inside.

In four of these cases, we saw that the medicine taken from the same bottle was given to a different child. We do not know whether any of the children are HIV positive, but this practice clearly creates a risk of viral transmission.

Consultant microbiologist and one of Pakistan’s leading infectious diseases experts, Dr. Altaf Ahmed, after watching our hidden camera footage, said, “Even if they inserted a new needle, there is a virus in the back part, which we call the syringe body, so it will be transmitted even with a new needle.”

Despite signs on hospital walls advising safe injection practice, we filmed staff, including a doctor, injecting patients 66 times without sterile gloves, and a different expert told us our footage revealed wider weaknesses in infection control training in Pakistan.

We also watched a nurse rummage through a medical waste disposal bin without sterile gloves. “It violates all the principles of injecting drugs,” Ahmed said.

However, we sent our images to the hospital’s new medical chief, Dr. When we showed it to Qasim Buzdar, he refused to accept that it was real. He claimed it could have been recorded before he took over or “the footage may have been staged” and insisted his hospital was safe for children.

Dr., a doctor at a local private clinic. Gul Qaisrani was the first to recognize the epidemic in late 2024 after noticing an increase in the number of children attending her clinic and testing positive for HIV.

He says almost all of the 65 to 70 children he diagnosed were treated at THQ Taunsa.

She remembers a mother telling her that her daughter had been injected with the same syringe as her cousin, who was living with HIV, and that the syringe was later used on other children. Qaisrani said a father told him he challenged the reuse of the syringe at THQ Taunsa but was ignored by nurses.

BBC Eye combined data from the Punjab state AIDS screening programme, private clinics and a dataset leaked by police to identify 331 children who tested positive for HIV in the city of Taunsa between November 2024 and October 2025.

Of the 97 children with HIV whose families were also tested, only four of their mothers tested positive. This suggests that very few of these cases are due to mother-to-child transmission. Muhammad Amin and Asma’s mother Sughra tested negative for HIV; Her husband died in a car accident two years ago.

Provincial AIDS screening program data lists “contaminated needle” as the route of transmission in more than half of all these 331 cases, including Asma’s; in others this species is not listed.

The Punjab government intervened in March 2025, announcing that the number of cases was 106. THQ Taunsa Hospital’s medical chief, Dr. Tayyab Farooq Chandio has been suspended, but BBC Eye can reveal he is back working with children within three months as a senior paramedic at a rural health center on the outskirts of Taunsa.

In an interview with BBC Eye, he said he took “urgent” action after learning of an HIV-positive case at THQ Taunsa, but said the hospital was not the cause of the outbreak.

Chandio was replaced by Buzdar, who told the BBC that his “main focus” when he took office in March 2025 was HIV and that he had a “zero tolerance” policy towards unsafe infection control.

“We have organized training programs for paramedics and staff nurses on how to prevent and defeat HIV. The most important part is our infection prevention control department. They have been properly trained in this regard,” he said.

But evidence from BBC Eye proves unsafe practices continue eight months later.

Our footage, shot over several weeks in November and December 2025, shows captured syringes and vials frequently left open alongside discarded needles on counters that should be kept sterile.

Many of the children we saw treated at THQ Taunsa were receiving injections through a cannula (a tube inserted into a vein), which further increases the risk of infection. Contaminated medication can enter the bloodstream directly, overcoming the body’s natural defenses.

We also filmed a nurse pulling a used syringe from under the counter with fluid in it for the last patient still inside. Instead of throwing it away, he gives it to his colleague, apparently ready to be reused on another child.

When we showed Buzdar our secret footage, he insisted that it was shot or staged before his tenure.

When asked what he would say to local parents watching this footage, he said: “I can definitely and confidently tell them that you should get your treatment at THQ Taunsa.”

The local government said in a statement that “no confirmed epidemiological evidence” “conclusively identifies THQ as a source” of the outbreak.

The joint mission between children’s charity Unicef, the World Health Organization and the regional health ministry highlighted the “role of unregulated private practices” and the “contribution of unscreened blood transfusions”.

However, BBC Eye leaked the joint mission’s April 2025 investigation report into the outbreak in the city, which found many of the same issues as our investigation into THQ Taunsa.

“Conditions in the pediatric emergency room were particularly concerning,” the report states; This is one of the episodes where BBC Eye filmed.

“Essential pediatric medications were lacking and unsafe injection practices were common. IV [intravenous] fluids were reused, cannulas were unlabeled, and used IV sets were left hanging on stands. “Hand hygiene was neglected, sinks were clogged and disinfectant was not available.”

Professor of pediatric medicine at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, Dr. Our images reveal weaknesses in infection control training in Pakistan, says Fatima Mir. “We must warn our injectors: ‘You have become an active tool in the transmission of diseases.'”

Our research shows that unsafe practices are driven in part by systemic pressures, including cultural preference and distrust of injections as treatment.

Pakistan has one of the highest rates in the world of therapeutic injections, many of which are medically unnecessary. Mir says the general public, including their children, wants them, and doctors are happy to oblige. “They should keep the injection threshold very high. Inject only in life-threatening diseases. Use oral medication for mild and moderate diseases.”

Shortages of medicines and supplies also fuel unsafe practices. Demand for injections can put pressure on resources allocated through quota systems controlled by superiors at public hospitals. “They have a certain number of supplies and they are told it has to last the whole month,” says Mir. “Do they see where cheating is dangerous and where money should be spent?”

During our undercover filming, we found that supplies were often missing in the wards, and patients who could afford liquid paracetamol were told to bring their own supplies. “They account for every ounce of medicine to us,” a nurse said.

The practices documented at THQ Taunsa mirror those in previous outbreaks elsewhere in Pakistan.

In 2019, hundreds of children in Ratodero town of Sindh province tested positive for HIV; Most of these had parents who tested negative. Local pediatrician Dr Imran Arbani told the BBC that his medical history found repeated clinic visits and multiple injections, “so he must have been infected from one or the other of these medical settings”. By 2021, the number of HIV-positive children in the region had risen to 1,500, and even now new infections continue to occur.

While we were shooting in Taunsa, a cluster of cases was reported in Karachi. The children, who were treated at Kulsoom Bai Valika Hospital, a local government hospital in the SITE Town area, later tested positive for HIV.

Among them was two-year-old Mikasha.

One family member said hospital staff used the same syringe on more than one child: “They filled the same syringe and gave it to one child, then filled it again and gave it to the other,” she told BBC Eye.

The hospital’s medical chief, Dr Mumtaz Shaikh, said in an interview that “qualified doctors would never reuse syringes”, “so we have no idea that such things could happen in government hospitals”.

However, the federal health minister publicly confirmed that the outbreak of 84 cases was triggered by the reuse of contaminated syringes in the hospital.

When we communicated the findings of our investigation to the national government, a spokesman said the government “immediately acted within its authority to investigate the concerns”. [and] Implement infection prevention control measures with guidelines sent to healthcare facilities in March 2025”.

In Taunsa, Asma’s family says she is losing weight and Asma now faces lifelong treatment for a virus she should never have been exposed to.

His family say HIV-related stigma means neighbors often prevent their children from playing with him, leaving him both isolated and ill. He asks his mother: “What’s wrong with me?”

Standing at her brother’s grave, Esma says that she misses him. “He is with God now.”

He tells BBC Eye he worked hard at school.

“When I grow up,” he says, “I want to be a doctor.”