|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Olga Panfilova, 32, and her eight-year-old-daughter Yana
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A need for education
Lack of health education in Ukraine is one of the factors that has fuelled the epidemic. Olga Panfilova (see "My Child, Our Children," below) discovered her positive status in 1999. "I knew there was AIDS somewhere in Africa," she says. "When I was told, I thought, Well, I just have five years to live."
It's not just HIV positive women like Olga who need more education, however. The Canadian Society for International Health, with $2 million in funding from CIDA, recently launched the Positive Children Project in Ukraine to help health care professionals and social workers improve the way they care for HIV positive children. Canadian AIDS experts are being matched with Ukrainian counterparts to provide training and mentoring.
The epidemic is spreading to children because Ukrainian women account for 40 per cent of those currently living with HIV/AIDS in Ukraine. Pregnant women should take ARV drugs to prevent HIV infection in their unborn babies since the mother's blood can mix with the baby's blood during pregnancy or during labour and delivery. But ARV therapy is often not available, and over the last five years, the number of HIV-infected pregnant women has risen five-fold. An estimated 20 per cent of HIV positive babies are abandoned.
"We [Ukraine] need a goal to stop mother-to-child transmission," says Komar. "It's easy. Absolutely easy," she adds emphatically. "We have to implement hard, active ARV therapy during pregnancy for all positive women. As far as I know, there hasn't been one case of mother-to-child transmission in the United States for more than 10 years now."
Three years after being diagnosed HIV positive, Tatyana, now a 19-year-old single, unemployed mother, still has a healthy white blood cell count and doesn't yet require ARV drugs. But what happens when the day comes that she does? "I don't look into the future," she murmurs in a barely audible voice. The newborn she cradled in her arms on that fateful day is now a three-year-old girl named Marina, who, to Tatyana's relief, tested negative for HIV. "I just live one day at a time." That's all she and her Ukrainian sisters, who have faced and continue to face incomprehensible hardships, can do. But it's the dedication, compassion and tireless efforts of a handful of women like Antonyak and Komar, Olga and her children's program, and other groups supported by generous Canadians through CIDA that sustains the growing numbers of HIV-positive Ukrainian women and nourishes their hope from day to day. For it seems that for many, hope is all that's on their side.
Last November CIDA announced a further $60 million commitment to fight AIDS, including funds specifically for women.
My child, our children
Ukrainian medical experts believe there are more than two million HIV-positive people living in Ukraine, 40 per cent of them women. Olga Panfilova, 32, and her eight-year-old-daughter Yana (above) are both HIV-positive. Once an intravenous drug user, today Olga works at the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, an organization that receives funding from CIDA through UNICEF, as the manager of their program for children. "I joined because helping others helps yourself," says Olga. She establishes centres for HIV-positive children, trains staff and finds foster homes for AIDS orphans.
So far the network has founded 11 centres; each supports 50 children from babies to 10 years old. Olga also promotes tolerant attitudes. "It's very hard to get your child into a school if it's known that she is positive," says Olga. "And, if it's disclosed that a child is HIV positive once she's in school, many times she's expelled. Most Ukrainians think HIV is contagious like a cold." Olga and her team also help HIV-positive children get proper treatment when caregivers don't adhere to antiretroviral therapy. "We think it's an unconscious desire to stop the suffering of the child," she says sadly.
Photographs by Heather Buchan. Produced with the support of the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency.
Page 3 of 5
|
more articles
