The number of children who contracted HIV in southern Kazakhstan in an outbreak blamed on doctors' negligence has reached 96, health authorities said Thursday. The two most recent victims, aged 3 and 4, were diagnosed with HIV in the Sairam district and the city of Turkestan respectively, The Associated Press quoted regional health department spokeswoman Ayzhan Umarova as saying. The Central Asian nation has been shocked after scores of children and 13 mothers contracted HIV through injections or blood transfusions at hospitals in the city of Shymkent, some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) south of the capital, Astana. Eight children who contracted AIDS in the case have died. Authorities have been testing thousands of mothers and children feared to be at risk of contracting HIV.
