In the dusty town of Taunsa, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, a government hospital meant to heal has instead become the heart of a devastating public health tragedy.
Between November 2024 and October 2025, 331 children tested positive for HIV, turning what began as isolated illness into a crisis that has shaken the community and shattered trust in the very institution families turned to for care, according to BBC News.
For many parents, the source of the outbreak is painfully clear: routine visits to the Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) Hospital.
Among the children was eight-year-old Mohammed Amin, whose final days remain etched in his mother’s memory with unbearable clarity. His fevers burned so fiercely that he begged to sleep outside in the rain, hoping the cold might ease the fire inside him. His mother, Sughra, recalls his small body twisting in agony, “like he had been thrown in hot oil.”
Soon after his death, the family’s grief deepened. His ten-year-old sister, Asma, was also diagnosed with HIV.
Their mother tested negative. Their father had died in a road accident two years earlier. To the family, there is little doubt that both children were infected through contaminated medical equipment during treatment at the hospital.
Now, a BBC undercover investigation has uncovered disturbing evidence that unsafe practices may have continued long after officials promised reform.
Filmed over 32 hours in late 2025, the footage reportedly shows hospital staff reusing syringes on multi-dose medicine vials on ten separate occasions. In four cases, medicine from the same vial was later injected into another child.
Medical experts warn that changing only the needle is not enough. If the syringe barrel itself is contaminated, the virus can still be passed into the vial and then to the next patient.
The scenes captured on camera are deeply troubling. Nurses and even a doctor were seen administering injections without sterile gloves 66 times. Used syringes and open medicine vials lay exposed on dirty countertops. In one moment, a nurse was reportedly seen retrieving a used syringe with leftover medicine from beneath a counter and handing it to a colleague.
A senior microbiologist who reviewed the footage described the conditions as a clear and dangerous pathway for the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases.
The warning signs had appeared months earlier.
In March 2025, Punjab authorities launched action after a local doctor noticed a sudden rise in child HIV cases linked to the hospital. The medical superintendent was suspended, and officials announced what they described as a “massive crackdown.”
Yet the promised accountability soon appeared fragile. The suspended official was later reassigned to another health centre, while hospital administrators continued to insist that staff had received infection-control training and that the facility remained safe.
Official data from Punjab’s AIDS screening programme deepens concern. In more than half of the 331 cases, contaminated needles were listed as the likely source of infection. Among 97 tested families, only four mothers were HIV-positive, ruling out mother-to-child transmission in most cases.
For children like Asma, the suffering does not end with diagnosis.
Stigma has turned illness into isolation. Neighbours now keep their children away from her. She grows thinner with each passing month, facing a lifetime of treatment.
Yet amid grief, fear, and neglect, a quiet resilience remains.
Standing beside her brother’s grave, Asma says she still studies hard at school.
One day, she hopes to become a doctor.
In a town where healing has turned into heartbreak, her dream now carries the weight of both loss and hope.
