Pakistan’s parliamentary committee has expressed serious concern over the reported data regarding HIV/AIDS. The committee termed the data presented by the Health Ministry as “unreliable and incomplete” and warned that if incorrect data was sent to international health agencies, Pakistan could face embarrassment at the global level.
According to the report, these concerns were raised in the meeting of the Standing Committee of National Health Services chaired by Mahesh Kumar Malani. MLAs questioned the credibility of the data presented by the Health Ministry, calling it inconsistent with provincial data. Briefing the committee, officials said that the National AIDS Program spends approximately $300 to $500 per year on each registered HIV patient.
But PPP MNA Shazia Sobia Somro strongly criticized the ministry’s report, claiming that the report did not accurately reflect HIV cases across the country. Somro said about 40,000 HIV patients were recorded in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2025, while Islamabad reported about 300 cases and Balochistan reported 7,000 to 8,000 cases. Still, the federal report mentioned only 81,000 patients and was missing detailed data from many areas. He warned that sharing such data with international organizations could damage Pakistan’s credibility.
Soomro also alleged that the Islamabad Health Regulatory Authority presented old figures instead of updated figures when fresh figures were sought from them. He also drew attention to reports of illegal abortions, saying in many cases up to 60 percent of abortions were occurring illegally, highlighting broader problems of governance and oversight.
Responding to the committee’s criticism, Union Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said it was unrealistic to expect that years of systemic shortcomings could be resolved in a few months. He also reported that HIV cases in Pakistan were estimated to be as high as 300,000, but this estimate was mostly speculative. The minister also revealed that 25 percent of resources under the Global Fund are distributed through the government, while 75 percent are given to non-governmental organizations, reflecting the structural complexities in the national HIV response.
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