Thai foundation helps abandoned HIV-infected babies

By T. Sima Gunawan

AIDS remains a major challenge for the world since a cure or vaccine is still a distance dream. Not only adults, but children and even babies can be infected by HIV. The Jakarta Post examines the issue in the following three articles based on the Third International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (JP): AIDS doesn't discriminate. It can infect both homosexual and heterosexual people, men and women, adults and children.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are 18 million individuals who have been infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), including 1.5 million children.

Pregnant women who have the virus will likely infect their babies. Only if an antibody produced by the mother gets to the embryo through the placenta can the baby resist the infection.

Some infected babies die shortly after birth, others can survive for years.

Many people, however, don't see any hope for babies born to HIV-infected women. Some women are so desperate they abandon their babies at the hospital soon after giving birth.

Two physicians from Chiang Mai University in Thailand, Prakong Vithayasai and her husband Vicharn, had the idea to help the many abandoned newborn babies four years ago.

"In 1991 there were many HIV-infected babies abandoned at hospitals," Prakong recalled.

The couple established the Support The Children Foundation and tried to set up a house to care for the babies.

News about the project soon spread inside and outside Thailand. Members of the Association Francois Xavier Bagnond from Switzerland, after reading about the project in The New York Times, came to Chiang Mai to lend a hand. The organization then agreed to finance the construction of four houses for the HIV- infected babies.

"Our aim is to make the project a model for the government and non-governmental organizations," Prakong said.

Prakong talked about the project at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, which took place between Sept.17 and Sept.21 in Chiang Mai.

The Asia-Pacific currently accounts for only 16 percent of the world's cumulative HIV infections, but the epidemic is growing rapidly in the region.

Thailand, which has 60 million people, has the highest HIV rate in the region. Officially, there are more than 800,000 HIV- infected people in Thailand. The number could reach 2 million by 2000.

Prakong believes, however, that there are about 1 million infected people in Thailand today. Ten percent of them are children and babies.

Many Thai children are HIV positive because 96 percent of the infected people are heterosexual, Prakong revealed.

"The government's orphanages are now willing to take care of the babies," she said, adding that there are also some NGOs doing the same thing.

"Most babies sent to us were those who were very sick," she said.

The Support The Children Foundation takes care of 24 infants in their four houses. There are only six children in each house because opportunistic infections (OI), like tuberculosis, spread quickly if too many infected individuals live in the same house, according to Prakong.

The babies sent to the houses were very sick and in poor condition.

"They looked like ET (Extra Terrestrial), but after we gave them support, a lot of good food, and the medication to treat and prevent OI, most of them are healthy now," she said.

There are six baby sitters and one therapist taking care of the children. A retired nurse is hired to handle general duties and a doctor visits the children daily. If they are seriously ill, the children are sent back to the hospital. Some have died.

Recruiting baby sitters was difficult because no one wanted to handle the HIV-infected children. Some changed their minds after Prakong and her husband educated them about AIDS and how to care for the children.

The Support The Children Foundation doesn't plan to expand, it was mainly intended to demonstrate how to care for the children, to educate people not to be afraid of the HIV-infected babies. Prakong proudly informs that the number of abandoned children has decreased.

Some parents of HIV-infected babies have come to the houses and have learned how to handle their children.

"After they saw the kids, who are nice and clean, and saw how the baby sitters take care of them, they changed their minds and decided to take care of the babies by themselves," Prakong said.

Prakong said they had planned to care for the children until they were five, but some are already over five years old. She said the children are still in the house because she did not have any idea what to do with them.

The children's parents are either included in the 6,000 AIDS sufferers who have died in Thailand, are sick or don't want to take care of their child.

The Support The Children Foundation also supports families who have HIV-infected children. The foundation educates the families about AIDS and helps them to generate income through vocational training like sewing and handicraft making. Either the mother or father or both have HIV, but not all the children are infected.

The foundation also supports the education of the non-infected children in the family.

"We give HIV-infected children some milk and extra food, but for the non-infected children, we give school uniforms and pay the school fees," Prakong said.

The foundation has supported about 250 families and spent 2 million Baht (US$83,300). The project is sponsored by the Terre des hommes organization of Switzerland.

UNICEF has helped the foundation to educate Thai villagers about AIDS.

Prakong said she and her husband have given more than 1,000 lecturers about AIDS at home and abroad.

"We cannot do much for the infected people but we ask them to consider the risk factor. We ask them to think about the infection before they get married or pregnant," she said.

"Next year will be the 700th anniversary of Chiang Mai and we hope we will have no more new HIV-infected babies by then," she said.