Riots as HIV Scandal Hits Village in Southwest Iran

Videos and photographs have been released of a riot in a village in southwestern Iran when news emerged that at least 200 people had been infected with HIV after having blood tests at a local clinic. 

Footage shared on social media shows the village of Chenar Mahmoudi in Lordegan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province on the morning of Saturday, October 5. People can be seen running on the streets, some of them throwing stones at the windows of a health clinic, and police retaliating by using teargas and batons against the crowd. In the background, the sound of motorcycles can be heard. “The police attack on protesters is horrifying,” says the person recording the scene. “We need help!” People shared photographs and videos of the office of the Friday Imam on fire, punctured tires on anti-riot police cars, damaged government buildings, and the sign of the clinic where the blood tests took place knocked to the ground. 

Police attacks on and violent clashes with protesters continued, and villagers gathered outside the health clinic, the Friday Imam’s office and the Lordegan council office, chanting slogans against the officials responsible for the crisis, and also against the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). The mood soon turned more political, with furious protesters chanting “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon; my life for Iran” and other broad attacks on the authorities.

Photographs and videos of the injured have been shared on social media, putting the protests at the top of the news. Villagers say that at least 200 people, including children, have been infected with HIV due to the use of a contaminated syringe for blood tests carried out at the health clinic, which is run by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. The ministry, however, has adamantly denied the accusation.

“The HIV issue aside, people are even more angry with the attitude of the health ministry, the health minister, a representative to the parliament and the news that was broadcast by the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari TV network,” Masoud, a resident of Lordegan who was present at the rallies, tells IranWire.

On Wednesday, October 2, following villagers’ protests calling for investigations into the HIV scandal, Ahmad Reza Bahrami, head of the provincial Department of Justice, reported that an employee at the local health clinic had been arrested. “It has been claimed that a medic working for a medical center has used one syringe to test everybody’s blood instead of using separate needles for each person. This individual is now under arrest.”

Health minister Saeed Namaki, however, described Bahrami’s statement as “unprofessional.” “In blaming the village medic for contaminating patients by using a contaminated syringe, a judiciary official in the province has intruded in the affair by making unprofessional statements and by arresting this hardworking servant of the people,” he wrote in a letter to the Minister of Justice. He accused Bahrami of giving “biased foreign media” an excuse to claim that villagers had been infected with HIV because of the negligence of medical center personnel.

Keeping an Epidemic a “Secret”

But the health minister did confirm that the village has been hit by an HIV epidemic. “A while back one of our hardworking health workers identified cases of HIV in the village of Lordegan in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari,” he said. “But out of respect for the reputation of people of the village it was kept a secret. Extensive tests identified new cases and it turned that the source of the HIV outbreak was contaminated syringes used by drug addicts, as well as people who have engaged in 'unacceptable relations,’” meaning illegitimate sex.

But IranWire spoke to a doctor who said the decision to keep the HIV crisis a secret was a dangerous move. “The strange point in the health minister’s letter is keeping the outbreak a secret,” a physician in Tehran and a specialist in infectious diseases who identified himself only as E.F. told IranWire. “When somebody is diagnosed with HIV virus, that person must be quickly informed so that he can take precautions. To keep it a secret only helps the spread of the disease.” The specialist said the health ministry must publish accurate statistics about HIV-positive cases to prevent more problems and negligence and clarify the source of the infection. “There should be nothing confidential about contagious diseases,” E.F. said.

“The villagers are also protesting because their honor has come under question,” says Masoud. “In his letter, the health minister said that drug addicts and illegitimate relations are the source of the contamination. The health ministry said the same thing on a report aired by Chaharmahal TV. The villagers fill that their honor has been damaged. At the same time, a member of the parliament announced that 26 people have been infected with HIV and said they had been infected by injecting drugs, whereas many more people have been infected.”

Masoud was referring to statements made by Mohammad Hossein Ghorbani, a member of the parliament’s health committee. He said in the village of Chenar Mahmoudi, “population of 1,800 ... unfortunately, as result of economic underdevelopment and poverty, around 240 of villagers have fallen to drug addiction and 20 of these addicts inject drugs. Studies show that only 26 of these villagers are HIV positive, including a seven-month-old baby.”

But Masoud had another version of events. “Everybody that I met said that a number of their relatives are infected and I believe that the number of 200 cited by villagers is credible. Many of them had their test results with them. Some were saying that they have repeated the tests and have gone to nearby cities to test again but all the tests have turned out positive.”

One Household, 8 Infected

In a video published online, a middle-aged man from the village of Chenar Mahmoud said, “As of now 208 villagers have tested positive after tests by the health network in Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad and other cities. My daughter, my wife, my sisters and my brothers and I, myself, have tested positive, meaning that eight people in my household have been infected. In the family next door six are infected.”

Mehdi Mahmoudi Chalebtalan, Lordegan’s representative to the Supreme Council of Provinces, told the news site Events 24, “The village of Chenar Mahmoudi has about 600 households and it is reported that more than 200 villagers are suspected of having AIDS.”

The specialist IranWire spoke to provided further information about the impact of the crisis on the village. “Two hundred of a village of 1,800 means than more than 10 percent of the population of this village is infected. Since all the patients are HIV positive and their CD4 count (the cells that the HIV virus kills) has not fallen below 500, it means that they have probably been infected in the last year or two. If that is the case, then we must see what has happened in this village in the last couple of years. But we have not seen the test results for these individuals. We really don’t know whether they are HIV positive or have AIDS. The oldest HIV positive child is a few years old. If we have enough data then we can understand what has happened to these poor people.”

On Saturday, October 5, in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, the health minister insisted that a contaminated syringe or syringes was not responsible for the HIV infection in Lordegan.

“HIV is not something that you should hide from the patient,” said Dr. E.F. “First the patient and then the public must know about it. If the people are not to blame and the syringes were not to blame, then what is the source of contamination?”