Ajhar and his wife Rajiya are prepared to welcome the newborn into their house, said Kabita Chaudhary, HIV centre at Sagarmatha Zonal Hospital in Rajbiraj where Rajiya is currently undergoing regular medical checkup. She is six months pregnant. [break]
“I tried to persuade the couple not to give birth to yet another child with HIV. But they want the baby,” said Chaudhary.
When Kabita was talking to this correspondent, a crying woman entered the hospital and implored, “Please abort my baby. I don´t want my baby to suffer.” The woman was a HIV patient and was six months pregnant.
According to Kabita, the woman was from a Dalit community and was transmitted HIV by her husband, who works as a laborer in India. She also has a one-and-a-half-year old daughter with HIV.
“In the absence of Preventing Mother-to-child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) treatment facilities in the zonal hospital, we have not been able to prevent HIV transmission to infants,” she said. According to the hospital as many as nine children in the district are infected with HIV through their mother.
The government as well as donor agencies have given top priority to HIV prevention and made huge investment in PMTCT and HIV intervention programs. However, the plight of HIV-infected locals in Saptari clearly shows that these programs have not benefitted the target population.
There are 39 antiretroviral clinics across the country and if a woman infected with HIV is provided antiretroviral medication chances of her passing on the disease to the new born can be reduced up to 98 percent, the doctors say.
According to health officials in the district, men working as laborers, especially in India, transmit HIV to their wife.
Related story
HIV AIDS infection reduced by 40%: UNAIDS
