(This is meant to be read in 2 alternating voices.)
Those who follow this blog know I’ve been working on a presentation about children living with HIV/AIDS. Some people ask why, and I tell them I was never that interested in HIV/AIDS until I went to Cambodia and got to know children living with the virus (at Wat Opot). They are alive because they have access to generic (cheap) antiretroviral drugs. It’s not clear how long they can live this way. People say “indefinately,” because they don’t know. “Indefinately” may or may not mean a long life, but the kids I’ve met can teach us all something about living a full life today.
I was thinking of the girl in the photos above when I wrote this poem (To love a child with AIDS). She’s a precious child living with HIV — I hope she has a long and full life ahead of her.
Only 30 percent of the people in the world who need antiretroviral drugs (to stay alive) have access to them, and most (like these children) only have access to first and second line therapies. Each “line” of drug therapy is a progressively complex drug cocktail that usually works for a period of years and then loses effectiveness. When the “first line” fails, a child (or adult) must switch to “second line therapy” (then third line, etc.) or develop AIDS and die. In low income countries, second line therapy is very expensive, and third line is out of the question even for people under the care of well financed NGO’s. For the sake of the children I know, I hope for innovations, new generic drugs, and falling prices. Fifteen of them are on “first line” and five are on “second line” therapy right now. I also pray they will have the best of life in this moment — and the same for you and me.
Right now more than 30,000,000 people in the world have HIV/AIDS, and 2,500,000 are children. Last year 330,000 children died, and 420,000 children became infected with HIV.
Today is World AIDS Day. It’s a good day to learn, think, and do something to make a difference.
Great poetry Andy, and thanks for making people more aware of Children affected by HIV.
With all our Love!
From the children of Wat Opot Children’s Community
Wayne Dale Matthysse
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I love the new format. Very lovely. Glad to link to it.
i read this hoping to get more info about innocent children living with HIV*AIDS because i have lived with one and am currently out of the country and but am always worried and asking God how long has he given us that joyful handsome boy.Thanks for the poem
Kimmy,
I was/am in the same position. After searching for more information, it seems to me that the “first level” ARV drugs are generally expected to work for a few years. Then “second level” drugs are necessary and so on. Many kids in underdeveloped countries will only have access to 1st and 2nd level drugs, because after that the treatment is too expensive. “Third level” drugs also involve injections, and they require refrigeration (I believe), so the orphanage that I work with would have to send kids to a hospital at that point. Besides not having money for the more expensive treatment, they also don’t have electricity in that area yet.
As you must know, the reality is only about thirty percent of people who need treatment for AIDS to survive (worldwide) get any drugs at all, and many of those thirty percent are in wealthy nations.
On the face of it, it’s scary (which is where the poem came from). But there is hope that more powerful drugs will drop in price by the time they are needed and that new drugs will be invented as well.
I’ll be writing a new post with more thoughts about where God’s love fits into all of this in a day or two, so please stick around.
i wonder when are we going to have the cure for HIV/AIDS ? we are living on an age with very high technology but still we have not found a cure for this disease.
[...] A poem about kids living with HIV [...]