Italian child A.I.D.S. tragedy

Press, 17 September 1987, Page 56

Italian child A.I.D.S. tragedy

By

PAUL HOLMES

NZPA-Reuter Rome When Stefania, aged 11, saw her brother, Marco, pick up a heroin addict’s syringe in a local park she grabbed it from him and pricked her finger on the needle. Now she is an A.LD.S. carrier and lives the life of a recluse because her parents believe it is the only way to cope. Although Stefania’s family cannot prove a link between the needle and the virus, the case has riveted attention in Italy on the dangers from thousands of drug users* dirty syringes thrown away in parks, backstreets and derelict buildings. It has prompted calls for an urgent clean-up campaign and warnings in the press, described by some medical experts as an over-reaction, that the addicts* needles have turned playgrounds into deathtraps. In the port city of Genoa, Stefania’s home town until her parents moved her away, children play in parks where used Syringes litter the flower beds, and* in * Turin, - city officials say refuse wonpre collected 10,000 in August alone.

“It is extremely unlikely for someone to contract A.I.D.S. from an abandoned syringe since the virus cannot survive for long outside the human body,*’ said Professor Paolo Gioannini, of Turin, a specialist in infectious diseases. “But there is a no less serious risk of other infections. We hear more and more of children and adults pricking themselves on needles in parks. There is no need for alarmism but it is a reality we all must face,” he said. ■: Professor Gioannini referred in particular to the dangers of forms of viral hepatitis being transmitted by used needles. Heroin addicts, because they frequently share hypodermic are among the groups cited as most at risk from acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which kills by destroying the body’s natural ability to fight disease. ; Italy estimates it has close to 1000 A.I.DJ. sufferers and about 100,000 carriers of the virus, of whom almost 60 per cent are. drug addicts. Stefania falls into the

carrier category and her parents, who spoke to reporters this month on condition that they remain anonymous, are convinced the abandoned needle is the cause of the tragedy. She has been taken out of school, separated from her brother, now aged four, and told by her parents that she has viral hepatitis in a bld to ease her worries. They said the accident happened a year ago but Stefania kept it to herself for months until seeing a television programme about drugs. Tests later confirmed she was an A.I.D.S. carrier. "We do not know what to do. I realise we are living virtually as exiles but for the moment I don’t see any alternative," the father said. “Stefania and I live like two recluses,” her mother said. “Why should she be infected simply because she was playing in a park with .her brother?" Italian' city paries, many of which dre vast and unguarded,. are a favoured place for addicts, and local officials are only now beginning to ' respond seriously to the* problem of the dangerous

debris they leave behind. In Turin, refuse collectors and volunteers collect the syringes with special pincers, and Milan is setting up a special squad to clear parks and public places.

Giacomo Molinas, a senior official of Rome’s refuse collection department, said a similar programme was planned for the capital and that refuse workers had already been issued ' with protective gloves double the standard thickness. “For our staff, there are no longer any risks. But the dangers have not ceased, especially for ordinary citizens,” Molinas said.