Elderly mothers bear AIDS burden

In countries with a high prevalence of AIDS, the epidemic decimates the young to middle-aged adult population—the backbone of the labor that supports both the national economy and the family.

Slideshow: Elderly Mother Bears AIDS Burden

In the absence of men and women of working-age, older relatives often resume the burden of being breadwinners and caretakers. More often than not, this task falls on elderly women.

A study published in 2002 by HelpAge International, a U.K.-based non-profit that champions older people worldwide, noted the following:

One outcome in countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence is an increase in the number of chronically poor households headed by older women, with a large number of dependents. Older women generally suffer most from chronic poverty and lack of resources. They are often in need of care themselves, but face, sometimes unaided, the costs and emotional stress of nursing terminally ill relatives, paying for burials and the financial and practical difficulties of bringing up orphans - including payment of school fees.

While the study was published four years ago, the effects described are still the reality. During the summer of 2005, Srinivas and I often noticed elderly mothers at hospitals and care centers unwilling to abandon their sons or daughters to the epidemic.

Despite setbacks, Bikhshapati is full of life

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When I first asked Bikhshapati his age, he didn’t understand my question. I asked again, “Are you five? Six?”

He answered in English but seeing the confusion on my face, he reached down and scrawled the number “12″ in the sand.

I was shocked. For a moment I suspected he wrote the wrong number.

His doctor told me later that Bikhshapati looks half his age because of the ravages of HIV. Although he is on anti-retro viral drugs, his body constantly struggles against the virus. On many occasions over the past few years, he has fallen deathly ill. He has missed school so often that he is now years behind those his own age.

Bikhshapati’s hardships have not dimmed his enthusiasm for life, however. For those of you struggling emotionally with being HIV positive, this young Karate fighter’s bright disposition might provide some inspiration.

A glimmer of hope: HIV infection drop in South India

Dr. K. Venu, chief of Hyderabad’s Government General Chest Hospital, treats an unrelenting stream of patients who come to the hospital for Tuberculosis treatment only to find that they have AIDS. In India, TB is the most lethal opportunistic infection preying on those weakened by AIDS.

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Despite the human toll he witnessed over the past decade, Dr. Venu remains optimistic about controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS.

He might have reason to be hopeful.

A study published March 30, 2006 in the British medical journal, The Lancet, provides a glimmer of hope.

The research, conducted by a joint Indian and Canadian team, found that India’s safe sex awareness campaign has had a dramatic impact on reducing HIV infection rates in South India—the epicenter of India’s AIDS crisis. The study suggests that HIV infection rates have fallen by a third in the worst hit regions of South India.

The research tracked HIV infection rates at the clinics where people normally find out they are infected, including among young women attending pregnancy clinics, and young men attending sex disease clinics.

The researchers studied HIV prevalence data from 294,050 women attending 216 antenatal clinics and 58,790 men attending 132 sexually transmitted infection clinics in the north and south from 2000 to 2004.

Despite his optimism, Dr. Venu warns that while the trend is encouraging, there is no time for apathy.

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