[brian]

As five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor await a verdict in Tripoli on charges that they spread HIV to 426 Libyan children, hundreds of prominent scientists are rallying in their defense, calling for a new and fairer trial.


The nurses and doctor were foreign experts working at Al Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya, in 1998, when an outbreak of HIV was detected at the hospital.


For years, the Libyan authorities, including the country's leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, blamed the foreigners for the outbreak, suggesting that they had intentionally injected Libya's children with the virus.


But a 2003 independent scientific report on the outbreak, by two of Europe's most prominent AIDS experts who spent many weeks in Libya reviewing the evidence, concluded that poor sanitary practices at the hospital were to blame.

Full Story: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/05/news/nurses.php

[purplemania]

I think of them often and pray they will be released. They have suffered so much already.

[heartilly]

I have been to that country. Actually, I spent most of my childhood days there and witnessed the condition of their hospitals. They really do have poor sanitation. Hygiene and cleanliness in the environment doesn't seem to be a major thing for them. I hope they would take action. The poor children may have served a signal for them to start changing things around their hospitals.