February 2, 2003 keralamonitor.com

Westerner Infecting Saudi Woman with AIDS Virus

Riyadh. According to an official source at the Ministry of Health (MoH) a foreigner living in the Kingdom was suspected of infecting a Saudi woman with AIDS virus after he donated blood to the woman in urgent need of blood transfusion. The event took place after she was reportedly admitted to a national hospital in Jeddah for delivery. The official is quoted by the Saudi media as saying that investigation is under way on the case and search was conducted for the foreigner who was found to have traveled outside the Kingdom on his annual leave. Al-Riyadh Arabic daily, the sister publication of Riyadh Daily, reported in a previous issue that a Saudi woman got infected with AIDS after delivery in a national hospital and that her husband filed a complaint with the MoH against the hospital. The ministry has accordingly started investigation on the case. The paper inquired how could the hospital transfuse blood directly to the woman without making laboratory tests first on the blood donors.

Meanwhile, Saudi health authorities have fined six doctors working in a private hospital SR45,000 for violating medical regulations. They also issued warning notices to three other doctors for violating Article 32 of the Medical Profession Law. A Health Ministry panel, set up to look into medical mistakes, also ordered that the doctors and officials associated with cases involving the death of a girl and removal of a woman’s breast by mistake should not be allowed to leave the Kingdom.

The investigation concluded in its report that the doctors had made mistakes in diagnosing the two cases. Dr. Sameer Lingawi, health director of Jeddah, told Arab News that the panel started investigating the doctors soon after receiving complaints from patients and after looking into reports issued by the hospitals involved. Lingawi said his department would not show any leniency toward doctors and officials found guilty of violating health regulations. "They will be punished should they be found guilty," he said.

Related Report on AIDS In Saudi Arabia

Kerala Monitor.com starts Streaming Video Content

Shyam Kumar

Keralamonitor.com, the Kerala based news portal with representatives in the Gulf, has started adding video content to the site from Saturday. By adding audio and video clips of small duration initially, the portal intends to transform into a web based news and entertainment channel to provide a mix of web pages, images and video files. "Video streaming is a preliminary form of web television, which is gaining popularity in the western world. Due to the slow modem speed (of 28 kilobytes per second or 58 kilobytes per second) in India, disseminating video files through the Internet is a slow process. With the introduction of Internet through cable connection, video streaming would become easy and an economical means of communication.

Asianetglobal.com, a leading portal from Kerala owned by the Malayalam TV channel group is the only site, which has video, streaming facility from Kerala. Asianet's programme "Munshi" is available online through asianetglobal.com portal. Keralamonitor.com's first video streaming programme is extracts from the Ghazal Sandhya by Shahbaz Aman, the upcoming Gazhal singer from Kerala, in Muscat. Extracts from the Gazal programme is available at http://www.keralamonitor.com/gazalaman.html. This is done only on an experimental basis and video streaming of long duration would be added later.

The introduction of Cable Modems in Kerala would enhance the speed of video file dissemination through the Internet. According to Shyam Kumar, an IT expert who played a key role in developing keralamonitor.com video streaming programme, Cable Modems with high speed range of 64 kilobytes per second to 128 kilobytes per second would make it easy to telecast Web TV programmes through the Internet. Shyam Kumar, the EDP Manager of Al Reef of the Dubai based Choitram group has been associated with the technical aspects of keralamonitor.com from the beginning.

"It is a major milestone for keralamonitor.com which has been an independent medium working without advertisement support or sponsorship. With the support of our visitors, we hope to add more video and audio content to the site," said a statement. "We have already got the necessary equipments and infrastructure to disseminate video content through the portal," it added. Downloading video files may take five to ten minutes. KM has already established its presence in the Gulf region by breaking sensitive news reports. It receives more than 45,000 pages views in a month, which is perhaps the highest hits received by any portal in this part of the world. There are more than 10,000 file requests per day and visitors from the USA, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, India and many other other countries.

February 1, 2003.