The Union's Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMCT) programme in Myanmar served 570 HIV-positive pregnant women and their children in 2013.
The Union Office in Myanmar now offers PMCT or Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission services in Mandalay and other locations. In 2013, this programme served 570 HIV-positive pregnant women and their children.
The two stories that follow show the difference this programme can make:
“Sayama! Will I be able to have another baby?” a 23-year-old woman asked with tears of grief when she lost her first child to HIV. A teacher from a remote area of Shan State, she married a man in the military in 2011. When she became pregnant, she had an HIV test and the result was negative, so she was confident that everything would be fine. She had good medical care and her son appeared to be healthy, but at the age of five months, he began to develop high fevers and was hospitalised. It was only then that she and her family learned that the baby was HIV-positive.
She and her husband quarreled over the HIV status of the child, who died soon after his diagnosis. Fortunately the couple received counseling from one of the Expert Patient Desk’s volunteers, and they enrolled in The Union’s IHC Programme even though they had lost their baby. As a result, the gift of their son was that he saved their lives by letting them know their HIV status, so they could begin treatment.
No mother wants her child to be unhealthy, including Ma Wut Mone, a gem broker in Moe Gyoke Town with two young daughters. When she was pregnant with her first child, her husband had to go to another town to get work as a gold miner. He returned when their daughter was three months old; then the couple was separated and reunited again, always after tearful promises from the husband. They had a second girl, who began to develop fevers when she was one year old. Through blood tests, the family learned that both the child and her parents were HIV-positive.
“It’s unbearable knowing she is infected because of us and once I was suicidal," said Ma Wut Mone. "But today I am really grateful to the IHC programme, which has helped and saved my family. Since she has been on ART, my daughter is active, healthy and happy again, the same as other children."