Hello everyone,
Hope you all are doing well this week. This week I am halfway through this book I am reading for this class. It is called At Risk by Alice Hoffman. It is about a twelve year old girl named Amanda who has AIDS due to a contaminated blood transfusion, because they were not screened. Right now in the book Amanda was just diagnosed with AIDS and the family is taking it really hard. Amanda's father Ivan is blaming her doctor and is extremely angry and aggressive. Polly, Amanda's mother is now doing everything she can possibly do to make Amanda happy and is constantly doing everything thing with the thought that Amanda does not have enough time left in the back of her head. And Charlie, Amanda's brother is mad at Amanda for ruining his life, due to the controversies AIDS is now causing at his school and between his friendship. Multiple students' parents are pulling there kids out of school in fear of their children catching AIDS and the students staying at the school and scared to use the bathroom or sit by Charlie and Amanda in fear of AIDS too. Parts of the neighbor hood are staying away, and other parts trying to help. Now, this book sets place between the 70s and 80s, and the main reason Amanda's AIDS is causing such a hysteria is due to the fact of uneducation, and unfortunately some are not educated about AIDS at all now too. This story is really eye opening to me about how tough HIV/AIDS is on a child, and it also disturbs me on how some parents in the neighborhood are acting like Amanda chose to have this disease and if she coughs on them they will catch it. This really does help show that education is one of the main factors in the prevention of the spreading of HIV/AIDS.
Also this week my class was instructed to research a HIV/AIDS organization based outside the US. My choice is the Aids foundation of South Africa (AFSA) and is the first non-government organization in South Africa. According to the AFSA website, their main focus is to improve the health to target sites by providing mentoring and support through donor's help. The AFSA also does research and reports the statistics they find.
www.aids.org/za
Did you Know:
This week I decided to talk about different HIV preventive therapies from mother to child including, HAART (Highly Active Antiretrovial Therapy), Nevirapine, and Zidovudine. HAART is used to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child while postnatal. According to the Science Daily HAART effectively reduces the transmission of HIV while breastfeeding up to 82%, and most of the 12% that was ineffective was, because the mothers either did not take the medicine regularly or had a too high CD4T count. Nevirapine and Zidovudine are given at the beginning of labor and up to two weeks after birth and are effective in preventing transmission up to 67%. All three of these drugs work by turning off an enzyme in HIV that prevents HIV from attaching to CD4T cells and eventually the HIV dies. It is amazing that we have such high percentages in preventing transmission from mother to child now and is sign of great things to come.
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The good old days. I was in the 80s when I went public in the media in Winnipeg, a city that is about a three-hour drive north of Fargo. It's not exactly the most progressive place. Those were the days when people were afraid to catch something off the dinner plates. And in fact the reason why I got into public speaking was a comment a nurse saying that someone who had recently died on a local hospital's palliative care ward "hadn't suffered enough." It's a longer story than that, but effectively that is what happened and caused me to speak out.
ReplyDeleteAt the time I felt bitter that there were "innocent victims" and the thus implied "guilty vicitms" The children and recipients of tainted blood products fell into the innocent and undeserving. But you have to remember it was a time when preachers where saying we got what we deserved, and it took years for Reagan to say the word in the US. We don't see that kind of division as much, but since HIV affects those who the most marginalized in society, and the modes of transmission it still carries a lot of stigma. I forget sometimes because I am so public.
I have a friend who gave birth to a postive child and his is now in high school and is carrying on with his life despite the challenges. From the outside it seems like a lot, but that's what he grew up with and only knows, and is a happy teenager.
My 12 year old is also growing up with HIV. I know there are times she doesn't want to take her pills because none of her peers take pills. It can be a struggle.
ReplyDeleteI remember the media and the approach that some deserved HIV. There are people out there that say even the children deserved HIV because they were suffering for the sins of their parents. You gotta wonder where these people come from.
HAART is Nevirapine and Zidovudine. They are two drugs in the HAART arsenal. I find it questionable that women in the Western world are being told to breast feed their children. Women in developing countries actually don't have much choice but to breast feed.
It isn't a high CD4 count that will transmit HIV. It is a high viral load. So if they had a high viral load and didn't take their medications then they do stand a greater chance of passing HIV onto their fetus.
You only mentioned two drugs, not three. As I said HAART isn't a drug; it is a word used to cover all the drugs used by HIV positive persons.
Hey Jenna!
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to read your blog and discover that you are reading At Risk! I am also thinking about reading that novel for the assignment. I don't ever remember people acting as described in the book about their children. I'm referencing the statement about children being taken out of school. Then again I wasn't born until 1989 and by the timme I could even grasp what HIV was people were more educated on the issue and didn't normally result to those actions.
I agree with teach about your did you know. It is a little odd that it would be ok for mothers to breast feed on that medication. It would be nice if on your next post you let us know a little more about that issue. Maybe there is a debate on just how safe it really is?
I do share your concerns with the main character in the story. It is a unnerving that people would treat a child as if they chose to be infected with the deadly virus. Who would want that? The idea that people may think that someone could ever deserve contracting the virus. NO ONE deserves that.
I'm excited to see what you post next week, since most of the time we are on the same page with a lot of issues :)