Archive for December 1, 2008
World AIDS Day: Young HIV patients are the best teachers
Taking medicine is routine for young HIV patients
Many mothers will tell you how hard it is to get their young children to take medicine. For young patients with HIV at CFCA’s Dar es Salaam project in Tanzania, taking medicine is a matter of life and death.
When the patients from the Intensive Day Therapy program arrive at the project clinic at 6:30 a.m., Project Coordinator Mary Dawn Reavey has their medication measured and set out on the table. Young children swallow nine cups of liquid until they are old enough to take pills. At that point, they take six pills: an antiretroviral drug plus five supplements.
The 23 children range in age from 3 to 18 years and attend day school on the project grounds. They visit the clinic before leaving to take another round of medicine.
Children help each other
Reavey teaches the children to swallow pills at age 3.
“Liquid medicine is much more expensive and it is easy to counterfeit, so the goal is to switch the children to pills as early as possible,” she said.
The cost for antiretroviral tablets is $20 a month for one child, versus $100 for liquids.
Typical of children, they make a game out of taking their medicine.
“They have competitions to see who is the fastest to take their medicine and who can take the most pills at once,” Reavey said.
Success entails being firm, consistent and patient, and giving lots of positive reinforcement. Peer pressure helps, too. Though it can be hard for the young children, they are usually pros after a week.
“Often they are so sick when they arrive and they have been so stigmatized, that when they enter a community where all their friends also take medicine and are showered with love and care, they start feeling better in a few days and actually seem to appreciate the medicine,” Reavey said.
Patients spread message of hope and compassion
Every segment of the community has been impacted by HIV/AIDS, Reavey said. Family members, teachers, health-care workers and leaders have been lost to AIDS.
“We have a tremendous need for education and the promotion of hope and compassion,” Reavey said.
This is where the young patients help. They are the best teachers and advocates.
“We always have clusters of children coming for evaluation and often discover later that as one child enters the program and becomes well, other community members find the courage to also ask for help and bring their children and grandchildren out of seclusion to seek care,” she said.
December 1, 2008 at 1:26 pm Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) Leave a comment
World AIDS Day: The stigma of AIDS in India
AIDS is still a taboo topic in India. But ignoring the problem is only making the situation worse.
It is estimated that 2.4 million people in India are currently living with HIV. That means that India ranks 3rd in the world in terms of the number of people with HIV, after South Africa and Nigeria.
Andhra Pradesh, a state in the southeast of India, has the highest prevalence of HIV in the country. Hyderabad is the capital of Andhra Pradesh, and CFCA’s project in Hyderabad is partnering with local non-profit organizations and community-based organizations that meet the needs of AIDS-affected children.
AIDS-affected children are either HIV positive, or their parents are. The children of HIV-postive parents may or may not be infected. But either way, they face the stigma of AIDS in a country that doesn’t want to face this growing problem.
People living with HIV are stigmatized and sometimes rejected by their communities, families and even spouses. A 2006 study commissioned by the National AIDS Control Organisation found that 25 percent of people living with HIV in India have been refused medical treatment on the basis of their HIV status. Human Rights Watch has carefully documented the treatment of children affected by HIV/AIDS, and they found routine stigmatization and abuse of these children.
“In some families, the person who is HIV positive won’t even tell their spouse or their in-laws for fear,” says Sukshmana Thakur, the CFCA Hyderabad social worker who works with AIDS-affected children. “The AIDS-affected children don’t tell their friends or teachers. The headmaster will know, but it is very confidential. The children are afraid that no one will play with them if they know the truth.”
Even organizations serving HIV-positive families are stigmatized. An orphanage serving AIDS orphans in Hyderabad has been forced to move location seven times because landlords keep evicting them once they find out that the children come from HIV-positive families.
Some HIV-positive parents are fired when their HIV status is disclosed or when they miss work because of illnesses caused by opportunistic infections. These families are poor to begin with, and losing a job makes their situation even more desperate.
CFCA sponsorship is providing hope to some AIDS-affected children in Andhra Pradesh. AIDS-affected children who are sponsored are able to go to school and have a nutritious diet even when their parents may be too sick to work. CFCA helps these children with clothing and medicines also, if they need them. “Some of the AIDS-affected sponsored children have parents who are beggars,” says Thakur, “but the children are able to go to school anyway because of sponsorship.”
The CFCA Hyderabad project is currently expanding its work with AIDS-affected children, and 162 more AIDS-affected children from the area will be available for sponsorship soon.
