JEDDAH, 10 October 2003 — Makkah Governor Prince Abdul Majeed has instructed local authorities to track down an Arab woman suffering from AIDS who disappeared last Wednesday along with her infant child from a local hospital.
The child, who is free of HIV, is to be handed over to social services. The woman has been identified as Husna and is 33 years old.
According to hospital staff, the woman, who was being treated at the hospital on the eve of her deportation, was last seen asking a nurse to help clean and bandage a cut on her foot.
The nurse said when she returned to help the woman, both the woman and the baby were gone leaving the child’s cradle behind.
The woman’s husband is also reported to be missing after learning that he too was infected with the HIV virus.
According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health, there are 6,285 known AIDS cases in the Kingdom. Of this number, 1,354 are Saudis.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, the number of people carrying the HIV virus in the Kingdom does not exceed 0.5 percent of the total number of AIDS-infected individuals in the Middle East and North Africa.
Between June 1997 and June 1998, 349 HIV-positive foreigners were deported. They were all found to be infected when they took the mandatory HIV test for work permits.
