HIV couples drawing ‘positives’ out of life
Parineeta’s husband died of HIV three years ago. The loss was irreparable and anyone would have given up, but this woman -- also an HIV positive -- decided to give life a second chance, Gaurav Saigal reports.
Parineeta’s husband died of HIV three years ago. The loss was irreparable and anyone would have given up, but this woman -- also an HIV positive -- decided to give life a second chance.
In her early thirties now, she got remarried a few months back. Parineeta and her hubby Vijay (an HIV positive) are now planning their family.
Similar is the case of 15 other couples, who tied the nuptial knot after doctors told them that the disease doesn’t mean the end of life and that HIV positive couples have a fair chance of having normal children.
“With effective treatment available, chances of motherto-child infection have reduced from the earlier 30% to 4 or 5% now. Therefore, an HIVaffected mother can safely give birth to a normal child,” said Dr AK Tripathi, the man instrumental in over a dozen marriages.
Nodal officer of the ART centre at the King George’s Medical University, Dr Tripathi says with more and more people coming openly for check-ups, HIV would soon become a treatable disease such as diabetes.
The successful marriages of HIV couples have now motivated Dr Tripathi to make the nodal centre a marriage bureau also.
He would soon communicate with other ART centres in the state so that a system is developed wherein any HIV positive willing to get married could send his or her details to find a suitable match.
“With such a facility, I believe HIV positive people would lead a better life. Many such people are willing to get married, but can’t do so as they do not know where and whom to contact. Therefore, we would assist them,” said Dr Tripathi.
The ART centre at KGMU had initially registered 9,222 HIV positive cases. Around 5,500 of them came from different districts i ncluding Maharajganj and Gonda.
The centre has 30 HIV positive patients on second line drug treatment too.
These people failed to respond to the first line of treatment/medicine.
(Names of HIV positive people changed on request)