Yerbolat Dosayev

Who is Yerbolat Dosayev?

Yerbolat Askarbekovich Dosayev served as the Finance Minister of Kazakhstan from 16 June 2003 to 5 April 2004, head of the Agency for Regulating Natural Monopolies, and later as the Minister of Health Care. He was fired on 20 September 2006 after 56 patients in an hospital in South Kazakhstan Region, all but one of which were children, were accidentally infected with HIV and five of the children died. Another 16 children soon tested positive for HIV, and a sixth child died from AIDS. Dosayev's replacement, Anatoly Dernovoi, announced on 10 October that four more children were found to be infected with HIV and "eight cases in mothers have been detected. The infection locus has been contained, but preventive efforts will continue."

Valentina Skryabina, leader of Nadezhnaya Opora, a nongovernmental organization that combats AIDS infections in drug addicts, said, "Blood is an article of trade.... Hospitals are offered blood, and not always through the blood center. People trade in blood like they do in human organs."

The Health Ministry raised the estimated number of children infected with HIV initially to 78 and later to 82, with eight dead from various diseases. By 2007 118 children and 14 mothers were found to have been infected.