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REPORTS: VENEZUELA |
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Saturday 15
November 2003
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Children
with HIV/AIDS Receive Free Medication
Yensi
Rivero
CARACAS, (IPS) - Carla is a
10-year-old Venezuelan who earns good
grades and wants to be a doctor when
she grows up. After school, where she
is in the fourth grade, she takes
hair-cutting classes. But she has a
carefully guarded secret: she is
living with HIV, the AIDS virus.
One of the main concerns of Carla's
mother, Carmen, who passed the virus
on to her daughter at birth, is to
keep Carla's HIV-positive status a
secret at school, due to the spectre
of discrimination.
Ana, who has a seven-year-old daughter
living with HIV, feels the same
anxiety. ''I can't tell my daughter's
teachers that she is infected, because
they would reject her,'' she said.
Ana has even modified her daughter's
medication schedule to avoid raising
suspicion at school.
''Parents resort to a series of
strategies to conceal their children's
health status,'' states a report by
Citizen Action Against AIDS (ACCSI), a
local non-governmental organisation
(NGO). ''Sometimes they modify their
antiretroviral medication treatment
schedules, which gives rise to serious
consequences in terms of resistance to
therapy and recurrent opportunistic
infections.''
Carla and Ana's young daughter are
among the 326 minors living with HIV
and receiving free medical treatment
in Venezuela, according to Cavinija
(Quality of Life for Youngsters Living
with HIV/AIDS), another local NGO.
The number of children receiving
antiretroviral drugs from the state
has doubled in the past two years,
from 150 in December 2001.
There an estimated 70,000 people
living with HIV/AIDS in this South
American country of 24 million,
including 12,000 patients registered
with the Health Ministry.
The increase in the number of children
who test positive may reflect better
access to treatment, rather than an
actual rise in the number of children
living with HIV/AIDS.
But Sandra Varela, the head of
Cavinija, told IPS that ''the number
of children with HIV/AIDS is larger
than what is publicly recognised,
because not all of them receive
medical treatment.''
And Magda Salazar, a social worker
dedicated to defending the rights of
children and adolescents with
HIV/AIDS, says she has seen the
increase with her own eyes among the
people with whom she works.
''We know the number is growing
because we are closely involved in the
social networks woven by the people
living with HIV/AIDS,'' Salazar
remarked to IPS. ''You get to know
them, and you see how the number of
cases multiplies.''
But according to the Health Ministry's
AIDS Programme, there are 236 minors
living with HIV in Venezuela.
Most of the children living with the
disease were infected by their mother,
in the womb or at birth. ''A child
born to a mother with HIV has a 30
percent chance of infection,'' said
Dr. Laura Naranjo at the Central
University of Venezuela.
However, if a pregnant woman receives
the proper prenatal medication and the
birth is by c-section, that proportion
can be reduced.
Carmen, Carla's mother, said she did
not want to give birth to a child with
HIV. ''I wasn't ready to receive a
child in that condition. I tried not
to have her, but later I regretted it
very much. After I tried to abort, I
didn't know if she would be born ok,''
she told IPS.
The antiretroviral cocktail curbs the
spread of HIV in the body. Although
the treatment has multiple
side-effects, it improves the
patient's quality of life and reduces
mortality.
Cavinija took a public school to court
last year on charges of discrimination
against four children living with HIV.
After that, the organisation was given
permission to carry out educational
campaigns in schools.
Varela said the stigma surrounding
people living with HIV/AIDS
demonstrates a lack of information and
awareness about the disease.
''Prejudice is one of the biggest
problems when we're talking about
HIV/AIDS,'' said Oscar Misle, the
director of the Community Learning
Centres, a local NGO.
''For the children, the worst thing,
the most dramatic aspect of the
disease, is not the opportunistic
infections, but the social
rejection,'' he said.
''It is ignorance,'' said Mercedes, a
mother living with HIV. ''People don't
know what you're going through, what
it's like.''
Carlos, 15, who was infected at birth,
said ''people should inform themselves
first.''
Another problem faced by the families
is gaining access to the necessary
health care and medicines.
Public hospitals that attend children
in Venezuela now provide the
antiretroviral drugs free of charge,
but only since local NGOs went to
court on behalf of HIV/AIDS patients,
Yolanda de Prince, an activist who
advocates the rights of children,
commented to IPS.
As the ACCSI report pointed out,
''there is a lack of effective
monitoring to guarantee a continuous
stock of medicines in order to meet
demand on time. And there is no supply
of drugs for opportunistic infections
in children and adolescents,'' she
noted.
In de Prince's view, the state should
guarantee not only health care but
adequate living conditions for
children and teenagers, in accordance
with international conventions to
which Venezuela is a signatory, the
constitution, and a national law on
the protection of children and
adolescents.
That is what Beatriz, a nine-year-old
orphan living with HIV, whose parents
died of AIDS, needs. Since her
relatives could not take her in, she
lives with five other children in a
group home.
''Critical poverty is a common factor
among families with HIV-positive
children, who often live in cardboard
shacks and go to bed without any
dinner,'' says the latest annual
report by ACCSI.
The link between poverty and the
spread of AIDS is found throughout the
region, say reports by the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC), the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB), and the joint
United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund,
estimates that there are a total of
1.2 million children under the age of
15 living with HIV/AIDS worldwide,
while 8,500 minors are infected daily.
In Latin America and the Caribbean,
the epidemic is gaining ground among
adolescents, warn those who study the
question of early initiation into
sexual activity in the region.
Fifty percent of teenagers in Latin
America are sexually active, and
between 53 and 71 percent of women
have had sexual relations before the
age of 20, reports an ECLAC study on
health and demography carried out in
eight countries in the region,
starting in 1996.
In Latin America and the Caribbean,
1.9 million adults and children were
living with HIV in 2002. Globally, 42
million people test positive for HIV,
and AIDS has claimed the lives of 20
million people, says the World Health
Organisation (WHO). Sub-Saharan Africa
is the hardest-hit region, with nearly
29 million people living with
HIV/AIDS.
But while the epidemic is growing, so
is hope, because the life expectancy
of children living with HIV has
increased significantly just in the
past few years, thanks to medical
treatment, said Dr. José Suárez, the
head of the AIDS unit in the Caracas
Children's Hospital.
''Take your medicine,'' advises
10-year-old Carla.
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