HIV/AIDS

A few days ago there was a wonderful news report that a young girl in the US was cured of HIV. I was absolutely thrilled and read the article straight away; the article is here: US HIV baby cured. You see, I knew someone who was HIV positive, but he died; not of HIV itself, as that is not the killer, but of AIDS. It was upsetting, because the man was one of our ground guards when me and the family lived in Kenya.





Kenya, being a country in Africa, is riddled with HIV/AIDS infections. It truly is horrible. I find myself speechless when people here, in the UK, joke about AIDS and the like. Because they don't know much about it, it may seem like a joking matter to them, but to me it doesn't. Slight diversion coming up - when me and my family went to the beach in Kenya, we took three suitcases. Two were filled with clothes and general holiday things, but the third was completely full of boxes of condoms. My dad was known as the condom man down on Diani Beach. He would take this massive suitcase onto the warm sand and start handing out these boxes of condoms, each with 100 in. All for free; the locals didn't have to pay a shilling. That was my dad's job - he was a Technical Officer for Reproductive Health. It was his duty to monitor the health drugs being distributed to the local slums and people. I like to think he was partly responsible for the decrease in HIV diagnosis in Kenya during our five year stay there.

But back to the main reason for this post, the fantastic news of the little girl in America. As I understand, this cure isn't really a cure as such. The reason the girl has been cured is because they started treatment, using the standard drugs for HIV, very early on; even before she was born because the doctors knew she would born with HIV. And when she was born, the mother, I believe, was asked not to breast feed her.

If this has truly worked and the girl is completely HIV free, this is the start of something new. Of course, curing all new born children with HIV is a monumental task and most likely unrealistic at this given moment; but at least it's a start. It would be absolutely fantastic for this to progress, with doctors being able to reach out to more new borns (or before the child is born) to start the HIV treatment. When this does progress further, I can't wait for it to reach Africa where there are the most HIV cases in the world. Finally, we as a human race have a foothold in the battle with HIV/AIDS and I am looking forward to reading any updates that may arise in the situation as a whole and with the young girl who was miraculously cured.

Thanks for reading,
Steffan