Central Asia has one of the world's fastest-growing HIV infection rates.

According to the United Nations, Central Asia has one of the world's fastest-growing HIV infection rates, due in large part to unsafe blood supplies and contaminated equipment. Twenty-one medical workers in Hazakhstan were found guilty in 2007 of infecting dozens of babies, in August 2008 a court in Kyrgyszstan convicted nine medical workers of infecting twenty-four children with HIV, and in November more than forty children were infected with HIV at a hospital Uzbekistan.

Karen Ann Gajewski is a contributing editor to the Humanist and a documentation project coordinator.