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Children and AIDS in Latin America - Growing Up with HIV |
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By Dalia Acosta*
There are some 2.7 million children living with HIV/AIDS in the world. With love and appropriate medical attention, they can have a good life. Unfortunately, many are left unprotected.
HAVANA - Latin American children and adolescents living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, the precursor to AIDS) could lead happy lives - if they received all the loving care and medical attention they needed.
Happiness can be as simple as eating a plateful of fried potatoes, a visit to the zoo or a nighttime outing to see the lights at Christmas, two Colombian girls, both 11 and HIV-positive, told Tierramérica.
Milena and Jennifer have spent several years at Casa Verónica, a children's home operated by the Eudes Foundation in Bogotá that currently serves two babies, 15 girls and boys, and three adolescent males – and all are infected with HIV.
At the home, Milena and Jennifer receive a balanced diet, antiretroviral medications (which slow the virus' reproduction) and care and companionship like that of a family. While living at the home, the children attend public school and take part in an ambitious extra-curricular activities program.
Like other institutions that provide care for minors with HIV/AIDS, Casa Verónica relies on public and private funds, which tend to be limited. Beyond the costs of the expensive antiretroviral drugs, the budget per child at the home is 600 to 1,000 dollars a month.
"We have to take the medicine because it is like food, it is like a vitamin that gives you the strength to live from now until tomorrow. I am going to begin a treatment with some pills that are enormous, like a piece of candy, and there are a lot of them," says Milena.
"With the medications we have to be very responsible because our health depends on it. And we have to set an example," says Jennifer, who takes 13 pills each day.
For the last eight years, Casa Verónica has attempted to provide a place for children who need a home, offering the best possible health and education services. However, social intolerance is still a difficult obstacle to overcome.
"Today the situation (of discrimination in the schools) has improved. But sometimes the children come home upset because a classmate has said something offensive. Then I explain to them: perhaps the others don't have a house full of love like this one. That is a disease worse than any other," says Gladis Peña, caregiver at the home.
Milena and Jennifer are lucky. More than just a few children in Latin America are abandoned, orphaned or living in extreme poverty, dying of AIDS even before they are included in the statistics. Some do not make it past age three, although with today's treatments they would probably live through their teens, or longer.
In Colombia, the government does not guarantee special medical attention for children with AIDS. Officially, there are 300 children in that country carrying the virus, but for every reported case, there could be five to 10 more cases, according to calculations by health experts.
In contrast, in countries like Mexico or Brazil, the state ensures antiretroviral medications for all children with HIV/AIDS.
Official figures for Mexico indicate there are 817 cases of infection of children under 15, but because many cases go unreported, the true number is probably at least twice as high.
"Children with AIDS are seen more as victims and suffer less discrimination than do adults, who are often identified with what many consider 'immoral' behavior," says Ana Luisa Escalante, head of Casa de la Sal, one of the few homes in Mexico dedicated to children with HIV/AIDS.
Worldwide, approximately 580,000 children under 15 die each year from AIDS-related causes each year. The number of HIV infected children reaches 2.7 million, according to the latest report by the United Nations, released on World AIDS Day, Dec 1.
A large portion of pediatric AIDS cases could be prevented if governments would provide diagnostic testing for all pregnant women, according to public health specialists. If a pregnant woman is found to be HIV-positive, there are medical treatments and techniques that help prevent transmission of the virus to her child.
But in most countries such hopes disappear from the outset because poor women, women who work in the sex industry, or women who use intravenous drugs usually wait until the end of the pregnancy before seeking medical attention – and if they are HIV positive, it may be too late to prevent transmission to their children.
"HIV testing is not offered to pregnant women. There are doctors who fear becoming infected and women who avoid seeking help for the problem for fear of losing their jobs or of being rejected by society," commented Colombian infectious disease expert Sandra Beltrán.
In Argentina, there are other obstacles standing in the way of adequate medical attention for HIV/AIDS patients. "It is difficult to receive continuous treatment when there is no money to pay for bus fare to reach the hospital," pointed out Elba Gómez, founder of the Argentine Foundation to Help Children with AIDS.
Ministry of Health figures put Argentina in first place in Latin America for the number of recorded pediatric HIV/AIDS cases: more than 1,300 children under 13 test positive for the virus, and 96 percent were infected by their mothers.
On the other extreme is Cuba, where since 1986 there have been just eight cases of pediatric AIDS in which transmission occurred from mother to child, two from blood transfusions, and one from sexual abuse.
The high reliability of the Cuban statistics is due to an integral health program aimed at preventing AIDS, which includes diagnostic testing for every pregnant woman and strict controls of blood donations.
"When I decided to have my child, and not to abort, I had an intuition that he would be born without problems, though I was aware of the risk," said Adonais Suárez, a Cuban woman with HIV who is awaiting the definitive diagnosis of her one-year-old son.
Suárez is one of the 82 HIV-positive women in Cuba who have decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. "I do not regret having my son, it is has been the best thing that ever happened in the family," she says. Like all HIV/AIDS patients on the island, the government provides Suárez with the necessary drugs and medical treatment to improve her chances of survival and quality of life.
Such care is the right of all Latin American children with HIV/AIDS, but in relatively few cases is that right respected.
* Dalia Acosta is an IPS correspondent. Marcela Valente (Argentina) and Diego Cevallos (Mexico) contributed to this article.
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