Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday directed authorities to impose a nationwide ban on the manufacture of substandard syringes and ordered legal action against those involved in their use, his office said in a statement, as Pakistan steps up efforts to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.
Hepatitis C burden in Pakistan
Pakistan has an estimated 10 million people living with hepatitis C, the highest number of any country, according to the World Health Organization. Around 110,000 people are newly infected each year, with unsafe medical injections accounting for about 62 percent of new infections.
Reused syringes have also contributed to HIV outbreaks, including one in Sindh’s Ratodero in 2019 that infected hundreds of children. A BBC investigation also found at least 331 children tested positive in Punjab’s Taunsa district between late 2024 and October 2025, with the province recording the most new HIV cases in 2025, at 7,920 of a national total of 14,182.
Prime Minister’s directives
Sharif chaired a meeting to review efforts to prevent infectious diseases. “Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed an immediate nationwide ban on the manufacture and use of substandard syringes to curb the spread of infectious diseases,” the PM Office said in a statement. “He also ordered legal action against individuals and hospitals involved in the use of non-compliant syringes or found criminally negligent in preventing their use,” it added.
The statement said Sharif also ordered the formation of a committee of experts to recommend further measures. The government launched the Prime Minister’s National Program for the Elimination of Hepatitis C with the WHO in May, beginning in the Islamabad Capital Territory with the aim of screening 1.6 million people in six months before expanding nationwide to more than 164 million people. The program aims to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat by 2030.
Regulatory and legal measures
Sharif directed the expert committee to consult provincial governments while preparing its recommendations and instructed the law ministry to propose amendments to the legal and regulatory framework. He also asked the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to develop policy measures, in consultation with the medical device industry, to permanently prevent the spread of infectious diseases through syringes.
“The support of international partners is crucial to ongoing efforts to prevent the spread of infectious diseases,” he said, according to the statement.
Curability and awareness
Hepatitis C is preventable and, with modern antiviral medicines, curable in more than 95 percent of cases, according to the WHO. Yet only about a third of those infected in Pakistan know they carry the virus.
