Soldier stabs pregnant wife with HIV needle

IOL ^ | 09/19/03 | Staff Writer

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Sydney - A Papua New Guinean soldier has been charged with the manslaughter of his baby son, who police said on Friday had died several months after the man stabbed his pregnant wife with an HIV-infected syringe.

Papua New Guinea deputy police commissioner Gari Baki said the woman was stabbed with a blood-filled syringe last November, when she was five months pregnant.

"Four months later, she delivered what appeared to be a healthy baby boy. After two months the infant developed rashes and was taken to the hospital for medical examinations," Baki said in a statement.

The exact diagnosis of what the baby died of was not yet known and there was also no indication of how the man obtained the syringe of infected blood. Police gave few details about the man except that he was 32 and a soldier in the Papua New Guinea defence force. Baki said the mother had tested negative for the virus which causes Aids not long after she was stabbed. Doctors confirmed that tests after the baby was born showed the mother and the infant were HIV-positive. The infant died a week after the test.

Australian aid agencies have predicted an HIV and Aids epidemic in Papua New Guinea of sub-Saharan African proportions.

A 2002 report estimated that 14 000 people were infected with the virus in a nation of five million people, more than four times the number of infections only two years earlier. This was despite a government education programme in a country where traditional beliefs often prevent the use of modern medicines or condoms.