My Blog

This post is an update for one of my previous post ‘Libya’s HIV Medics’

The worst fears have come true. The verdict on Tripoli Six is out and they face death by the firing squad. Very unfortunate...

Nature was closely following this case. After the verdict Declan Butler writes,

A Libyan court today condemned to death six foreign health professionals accused
of infecting over 400 children with HIV in 1998. The court refused to take into
account a swathe of independent scientific evidence indicating that the outbreak
had begun several years before the accused began working there and was caused by
poor hygiene at the hospital........

Worst part is that, Libyan court is not interested in looking at the scientific evidence backing the medics which was published recently in Nature

In a paper published online in Nature last week, an international team led by
researchers from Oxford, Edinburgh and Rome showed that the strain of HIV with
which the children had been infected was already present and spreading locally
in the mid-1990s, long before the medics arrived in Libya in 1998

[Ref : Molecular HIV evidence backs accused medics ]

Only way out left for the medics is to re-apeal in the Supreme court of Libya amidst of all the pessimism. They have 60 days left for re-apeal. If the international community does not act swiftly now, there is little hope left for the medics.

There is an immediate need for an independent scientific investigation.

Very sad development,

Seeji.