By Dr Neelima Mohanty | Head Communications
The 13yr old baby Sushma (name changed) is a special girl child was born to HIV positive parents in India. It is a mother to child transmission incident so she turned out to be a HIV positive by birth. Her mother got to know about HIV status of herself during pregnancy, but she was helpless in regard of saving her baby. After demise of her both parents due to AIDS, this girl and her elder brother were staying at their relatives place for few days.
The baby is on ART(antiretrovial treatment) medication so she needs special care in terms of nutritive food and medication on daily basis. Because of HIV stigma, she was not invited by her neighbours and closed relatives.
Being neglected by her guardians, her brother lost hope and not able to find any place for her survival. During her ART medicines collection, she happened to met our Program Facilitator atgovernment hospital.
Later her brother brought the baby to DESIRE Society as it has a care home for such destitute HIV/AIDS children. DESIRE Society has pledged to provide her basic core needs with a self respect and hope for future. The required nutritional diet which was given to this baby helped physical growth in no time. This has motivated our team to render complete services to baby Sushma.
ART drug adherence was practiced 100% for this baby and she responded with signs of health transformation. The result of CD4 count was improved reasonbly which is very vital for futher survial of a person living with HIV virus. The health wise improvement of this baby has motivated other inmates of the care home.
Earlier , her schooling was in Government school and now she got enrolled for Private school for a quality education. The over all development of the baby has inspired all other inmates and team DESIRE Society.
This transformation is seen today as baby Sushma"s dream of becoming a "TEACHER “ in future. DESIRE Society, like other children of special needs has committed to enable a sustainable future with a dignity.
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