Child gives hope to HIV positive parents

The boy looks as healthy, energetic and cheerful as most children at 7.  But before he was born, his mother kept her fingers crossed that her HIV would not pass on to the child.

Thanks to constant medical care and close monitoring of the mother during pregnancy and afterwards, an antibody test into the 18th month of the delivery revealed that the baby was not infected by the much-feared human immunodeficiency virus.

Now the little kid has grown up to study in the second grade.

Not only his mother, his father had also tested positive for AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) before their marriage.

They married in 2007, despite having such a fatal illness, after developing affection for each other.

The boy is now the couple's world of love and happiness.

"None on this earth was as happy as we were after knowing that our child had no HIV,” the 26-year-old mother told The Daily Star.

The parents have been taking medicines regularly to suppress the virus in their bodies. During pregnancy, she continued having those drugs.

After birth, the baby was given syrup for six weeks and then another medicine for one year, said his father, at 38 years old.   

The family was provided with the treatment under a pilot project of Marie Stopes Bangladesh, an NGO that gives sexual and reproductive healthcare, said Habiba Akhter, executive director of Ashar Alo Society, which coordinates health services to HIV patients.

Currently, HIV positive mothers are receiving treatment under the "Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV" project at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University in Dhaka, Chittagong Medical College Hospital, and Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College, said Dr Marina Akhtar, programme manager of the project.

As many as 61 women with AIDS have been treated during pregnancy since the introduction of the project in May 2013, she said, and 46 of them so far gave birth to healthy babies, meaning they do not have AIDS. It was confirmed that they were clean only after the DNA Polymer Chain Reaction test.

Seven other women had miscarriages and seven are still under observation, the doctor said, adding that one baby could not be saved from the infection due to late detection of the disease of the mother.

Once a pregnant woman is diagnosed with HIV she is immediately given antiretroviral therapy that suppresses HIV. After birth, babies, whose parents have AIDS, are given Nevirapine syrup, also a suppressive drug, for six weeks.

Then babies are given co-trimoxazole for one year when they are fed breast milk, said Prof Dr Saleha Begum Chowdhury, director of the project.

A baby goes through the DNA Polymer Chain Reaction test twice -- at six week old and at thirteen and a half month old, confirming that the baby is free of HIV, the project director said.     

Apart from pregnant women, antiretroviral therapy is given free to all HIV patients for life, she added. 

In Bangladesh, mothers with HIV are not forbidden to breastfeed their babies.

“We allow them to feed their babies breast milk, considering their economic condition,” Prof Saleha said, adding in many parts of the world HIV positive mothers are not allowed to do so as there is a risk of transmission.

With the risk eliminated, motherhood gives hopes to HIV positive women facing the fear of death and the stigma attached to the disease.

“My life suddenly lost all meaning as I was diagnosed with AIDS. I thought I was going to die within a short time,” said the mother.

Except for her family, whoever learnt about her disease hated her, she said. “I feel so blessed whenever I look at my son's face.”      

The couple have been blessed with another child, a baby girl, last month.