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Bulgarian nurses appeal to be heard on Dec.25
SOFIA — Five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus are to have their appeal heard on Christmas Day, Bulgarian officials said on Saturday.

The appeal hearing for the five nurses and a Palestinian doctor had been set for January 31, but officials said it had now been moved forward. “The Libyan court has moved the date for the trial to December 25,” Bulgarian foreign ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev told Reuters. He said the nurses’ lawyer, Othman Bizanti, had informed the Bulgarian embassy in Tripoli.

The five nurses and the doctor, in jail since 1999, face death by firing squad for infecting 426 children with HIV in a hospital in the Mediterranean port of Benghazi. About 50 of the infected children have died.

Bulgaria, the European Union and the United States have all rejected the guilty verdicts as unfair, clouding Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s efforts to end his diplomatic isolation. The nurses say their confessions were extracted under torture. Aids experts also told a Libyan court the outbreak started before the nurses arrived and was probably caused by poor hygiene.
Which is real easy to do in a near third-world country. Most likely cause: re-use of improperly-sterilized needles, syringes and other equipment that has come into contact with blood. One of the reasons why you don't see this in the first world is so much of our medical consumables are disposable. The third world is different, and just rinsing a needle with a little alcohol won't kill HIV.

Posted by: Steve White 2005-12-19
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=137777