23 Indian children aged five and 10 tested positive on the latest HIV tests, an Indian official told AFP.

News said these children suffered from thalassaemia, a rare genetic disorder causes the body not to produce the right globulin protein, thereby producing useless blood and resulting in anemia. As part of its treatment, regular blood transfusions are required.

The HIV screening tests held two times a week involved 100 patients who received blood transfusions.

Parents blamed the government-owned hospital in Junagadh district of Gujarat state in Western India for transfusing blood believed to be tainted with HIV. The children received blood transfusions from January to August this year.

Rajesh Kishore, state secretary of health told AFP his office conducted an inquiry into the case after the tormenting news reached the Ministry of Health.

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Earlier, Gujarat's minister of health, Jay Narayan, briefed reporters saying the infection may have occurred "at some other places" as pre-transfusion tests conducted in another state-run hospital revealed a similar HIV-positive result, but parents remained firm in their accusation saying their children received blood transfusion only from Junagadh government hospital.

"We have never gone anywhere else [for blood transfusions]. How can they [authorities] say that children were affected with the virus before getting registered?," Salim Sheik, father of one Indian child, was quoted on BBC.

According to a related report, India has 2.5 million cases of HIV. 22 percent of the figure comes from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. But Indian authorities claim the annual new HIV cases in India have declined by 50 percent in the previous decade.

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