Living with HIV: A Child’s lonely Life
Every year thousands of babies around the world acquire HIV from their mothers during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding. Every day around 31 children lose the battle against this incurable Virus. Every day HIV destroys dreams and hopes before they were even spoken of…
Liang Liang (an alias) is hoisting the National Flag in the school´s courtyard. His teacher Wang Lijun is helping him, since no other pupils are around. Liang is attending the first one- pupil school in China, since he was rejected from his village school in Baoshan, because he is HIV positive.
The nine year old is carrying this deadly virus since birth. His father infected himself while working abroad; he was the first HIV- carrier in China’s northeast province of Liaoning. Unsuspecting he transmitted the virus to his wife.
His parents sent their son to the public school of Baoshan, but they had to take him out after only 3 days, because he was totally disliked. These were sad days for Liang Liang, since no one talked or played with him. Most parents even dragged their children out of school and the ones, who did come to school, met him with hatred and ignorance.
All attempts of the local health department to persuade the parents were in vain, since the fear of an infection is bigger than the necessary tolerance in such a poor educated province.
Liang`s parents demanded his right to go to school and so the government had to open a school just for him. He is taught by a 60year old retired cultural worker, who teaches him all the required subjects.Due to his negative health condition he is just allowed to study half the day. After school his teacher plays ping pong with him, basketball and other activities, which keep him occupied.
No one knows how long he is going to live, since his parents don´t have the necessary funds to pay for required treatments.
From the outside Liang is just a normal child as all the other, but in the inside he is a devastated, lonely child, who suffers more from the social isolation than his bad health conditions. He wants nothing more than to go outside and to play with the other children in the mud.
Liang is such a modest and mature little boy. Comparing our desires to his simple dream makes me feel ashamed. We should appreciate life much more and should not criticize the world around us all the time. A bad grade or a missed opportunity might be fretful, but what matters most in life is health, a loving and caring family, and to appreciate every second of life.
No child deserves to be rejected, because he was born with the life-sentence of HIV. To prevent this, much more needs to be done in the field of education, especially in rural and extremely poor areas. Much more medication needs to be made available, because at the moment around four million children, who could be benefiting from this drug, are not receiving it.
This is a very touching story, and I think you presented it very well. I truely hope that he, and all other children and people like him will get help.
The frustrating part is, that there is more than enough of the needed medicine in the industrialised world to provide all HIV-suffering children with the medicine. But since there is no direct profit to be made for all the medical companies and governments, nobody acts.
I know a few people with HIV, and with the medicine they all live relative normal and enriched lives. As the video states, it is the fear of the ignorant people who destroy HIV/infected people’s possibility of leading a normal life. Thank you for sharing the video and the charity link. I hope that governments and organisations soon will step up to their responsibility, and that the future will look brighter for all HIV-infected children in the world.
You are so right, there needs to be something done. A lot of people, who need the medicine, hardly get it. Unfortunately HIV is still a serious problem, especially in developing countries. HIV develops very rapidly among infants and children and, without treatment, a third of infected children will die of AIDS before their first birthday, with half dying before they are two. Another problem that comes up, is that in resource-poor countries a mother may have to wait up to 18 months after giving birth before antibody tests can be used to accurately diagnose her child.
AIDS is a life sentence, but with the right treatment you can have a normal and cheerful life. Infected people already have to carry a very heavy burden, they don´t deserve to be met with ignorance and antipathy.
I hope your friend will live a very long and happy life!
I really agree with Janni in every point. I think it is quite important that all HIV-infected people need help, no matter if they are poor, rich, black, white, yound or old. They have the right to live a normal life…as good as possible. For me, Liang Liang deserves respect as he tries to live normally, although he knows he is going to die. That’s why I cannot understand how people act like you wrote in your article, trying to show that he is different. But he isn’t. Nobody is.
You really gave a good overview about those ranging problems; I like reading your blog in general. Hope to read a lot more of you.
Unfortunately a lot of people don´t think like you. They don´t have the necessary education to understand that AIDS is a disease, which can only be transferred by having sexual relations without contraception. I felt very sorry for Liang Liang, because millions of children have to live a life like him. They were infected from their mothers and did not have a choice at all. I really hope, that in the next years children like him will get the chance for a better life!
I think totally the same like you Ariane. There are so many possibilities and medicaments to enjoy the life with other people even when you are affected. These kinds of countries need just more education to accept this sickness next to them. Even in the german BigBrother house are living two HIV positiv men and the whole world is watching without any scandals. So that means, that the educated countries have to work for more knowledge in countries like China.