Cambodia charges unlicensed doctor for spreading HIV to over 100 people

Cambodian prosecutors said they charged an unlicensed medical practitioner with murder yesterday, alleging he spread HIV among at least 106 villagers in the country's remote northwest.

 Authorities detected the HIV local epidemic on December 9 when they started testing in the community in Battambang province and found children as young as two and people in the 80s had contracted the virus. They were alerted after a 74-year-old man tested positive in November and started convincing others who had also visited the same practitioner, 55-year-old Yem Chrin, to get tested. Yem Chrin admitted to routinely re-using syringes and was a well-respected local doctor who provided cheap services to the poor, according to provincial deputy police chief Chet Vanny.