Prevention key for moms with HIV
Print Edition
Halisa still thinks of her aborted fetus. “It was a boy,” she says in a low, sad voice.
If not for her HIV/AIDS, the 33-year-old Uygur woman would have been happily living with her ex-husband, not in fear that her condition might be revealed to others and not choosing to have an abortion against their cultural tradition.
Halisa, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, was found HIV positive in a routine health check in 2008.
“My ex-husband would stay at least five meters away from me, for fear of being infected,” she said. He demanded a divorce and persuaded her to abort.
“I had been pregnant for eight months,” Halisa said. She felt ill after the abortion. What was worse, her eldest daughter was also found HIV positive.
Three years later, Halisa married again, with another HIV carrier. In 2013, she got pregnant, again.
At first she didn’t want to have the baby out of concern it may not be healthy. She went to a clinic, only to find she didn’t have enough money for an abortion. Her husband wanted her to keep the baby.
Medical workers in Halisa’s village approached her to offer help. A health worker named Saniya gave her medicine that would prevent her baby from getting transmitted.
“She also told me to deliver in the hospital and not to breastfeed the baby,” Halisa said.
Halisa’s second child is now 2 years old, healthy and strong. She is pregnant again.
“Prenatal medicine, cesarean and artificial feeding can help lower the mother-to-child transmission rate significantly from around one third to 6 percent,” Saniya said.
Since the first case of HIV/AIDS was discovered in the 1980s, China has reported 575,000 HIV carriers and AIDS patients as of the end of October, and 177,000 deaths. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the number of HIV-positive people in China could account for 0.06 percent of China’s total population.
Sex is a main channel of transmission. About 91.5 percent of the cases reported between January and October 2014 were transmissions through sex.
Drug users also spread the virus to their spouses, then, possibly, to their children. In 2014, 1.1 percent of new cases were from mothers to children.
“HIV/AIDS poses a great threat to babies,” said Xu Wenqing, a specialist with UNICEF. “Without proper medical treatment, half of the infected babies won’t live for two years. Even when they grow up, they have to face more challenges, including illness and prejudice.”
Hope for the unborn
To help children avoid contracting the virus from their mothers, UNICEF in 2001 introduced HIV prevention measures to reduce mother-to-child transmissions. Each year, among 5,000 to 6,000 HIV-positive pregnant women in China, only around 300 give the virus to their children.
However, not all pregnant women are cooperative. Saniya recalls sitting outside a local hospital with a 31-year-old woman from dawn to dusk, trying to convince her to take preventative measures.
The mother-to-be was found HIV positive in June 2008 in a health check. Saniya called her several times until she agreed not to abort and take preventative measures.
The new mother was nervous when her baby had his first health check. “I stared at the clock,” she said. “The test took an hour, but it was like 10 hours.” The baby was healthy.
Thanks to the measures, more and more HIV-positive mothers are giving birth to healthy babies. “None of the babies born in 2014 were HIV positive,” said Rizyan, head of the health care center for women and children of Yining City.
Halisa regrets not learning the project earlier. “I breastfed my eldest daughter for 13 months,” she said. She must have been infected then.”
“My daughter is happy now. She won two national painting contests last year. I am proud of her. Maybe we will be able to cure AIDS in the near future,” the mother said.
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