Face HIV with Dr. Watiti
Jun 26, 2007
Won’t she infect us?<br>Dear Doctor, <br>My sister, who has been staying in the village has just moved in to live with us. She has HIV and has just been diagnosed with TB. We fear she might infect us all. We have given her a separate cup and plate to use but she does not like this and sometimes
Won’t she infect us?
Dear Doctor,
My sister, who has been staying in the village has just moved in to live with us. She has HIV and has just been diagnosed with TB. We fear she might infect us all. We have given her a separate cup and plate to use but she does not like this and sometimes refuses to eat. What can we do because I love her so much and would like to care for her but do not want my family infected with TB.
Jane
Dear Jane,
It is important that, as we offer care to others, reasonable precaution is taken to avoid catching the infection ourselves.
However, if you have taken the precaution of isolating items like cups and plates without explaining why this is being done, then you probably are not being reasonable.
While it is true that TB is a communicable disease which is air-borne, the most likely way of any of you catching it from your sister is when she coughs or spits openly, thus exposing you to the TB germs.
Since cups and plates are usually washed before being used, it is most unlikely that this disease would be transmitted through sharing these utensils. Therefore, the most important precaution in this case is to help her know how TB is transmitted so that she observes proper hygiene. She should preferably sleep alone in a well-ventilated room especially if she is not yet on anti TB drugs or if she has just started taking them.
However, she may cease to be infectious after two weeks of starting treatment if she is taking it expeditiously.
Your sister’s strange behaviour could be a result of stigma and the apparent discrimination she is experiencing. She may be feeling depressed and this may have caused her to refuse to eat and she may eventually even refuse to take her drugs and probably die.
This often happens to people who may have not been adequately counselled so as to develop coping mechanisms to enable them live with their condition. Self-stigma on the other hand can also make people lose their self-esteem and sometimes even the will to live.
Lastly, the fact that your sister has both HIV and TB means that she should be assessed so that she is put on ARVs if she has not yet began using them. This is because the stage at which the infection is at, requires that this should be done.
She is 14 and HIV positive
Dear doctor,
I am caring for my late sister’s daughter who is 14. She is HIV-positive but does not have any signs or symptoms. Her mother told us to just observe the child and only seek treatment when she shows signs. I am wondering what to do now because I also fear telling her she is HIV-positive when her younger siblings are HIV-negative. Please help.
Harriet
Dear Harriet,
Children, like adults, might remain symptom -free for long even when they are infected with HIV. It is wrong for both children and adults to only go for medical check up or care when they show symptoms.
We should avoid thinking that all that matters about HIV/AIDS-care is giving ARVs. In fact people who seek for care and support well before they get serious opportunistic infections tend to do better than their counterparts who wait until they are quite sick before they seek for help. The former have time to be counselled, accept their diagnosis and learn to live positively plus developing coping mechanisms that would help them overcome the challenges HIV poses.
In the case of children, if you wait until a child is sick and then go for care, you may do so when the child’s development is already irreversibly affected.
You should now begin preparing your niece by disclosing to her, her HIV status. It is better done now because she will be in a better state of mind when she is not in pain. The other thing you need to know is the CD4 count of the child because this is the only objective way you can know how much damage the HIV has done to her immune system. Depending only on clinical assessment can be subjective, because one can look well when their immune system is so badly damaged and therefore vulnerable to serious opportunistic infections. We can even measure the viral load of the child as this helps us to find out how active the virus is in the body.
Lastly, all children whose parents died of HIV/AIDS should undergo HIV testing since they could have been infected through mother to child transmission. Since HIV in children is such a nightmare for both health care givers and carers, adults should endeavour to find out their HIV status before having children.
Of the 2.2 million children estimated to be infected with HIV worldwide, over 90% are in poor countries like Uganda and most of them were produced by people who either never knew they were HIV positive or that the virus could be passed on to their children. Now that we know, it must be stopped.
Send your question on HIV to Health Editor, The New Vision.
P. O. Box 9815, Kampala or health&beauty@newvision.co.ug
Dear Doctor,
My sister, who has been staying in the village has just moved in to live with us. She has HIV and has just been diagnosed with TB. We fear she might infect us all. We have given her a separate cup and plate to use but she does not like this and sometimes refuses to eat. What can we do because I love her so much and would like to care for her but do not want my family infected with TB.
Jane
Dear Jane,
It is important that, as we offer care to others, reasonable precaution is taken to avoid catching the infection ourselves.
However, if you have taken the precaution of isolating items like cups and plates without explaining why this is being done, then you probably are not being reasonable.
While it is true that TB is a communicable disease which is air-borne, the most likely way of any of you catching it from your sister is when she coughs or spits openly, thus exposing you to the TB germs.
Since cups and plates are usually washed before being used, it is most unlikely that this disease would be transmitted through sharing these utensils. Therefore, the most important precaution in this case is to help her know how TB is transmitted so that she observes proper hygiene. She should preferably sleep alone in a well-ventilated room especially if she is not yet on anti TB drugs or if she has just started taking them.
However, she may cease to be infectious after two weeks of starting treatment if she is taking it expeditiously.
Your sister’s strange behaviour could be a result of stigma and the apparent discrimination she is experiencing. She may be feeling depressed and this may have caused her to refuse to eat and she may eventually even refuse to take her drugs and probably die.
This often happens to people who may have not been adequately counselled so as to develop coping mechanisms to enable them live with their condition. Self-stigma on the other hand can also make people lose their self-esteem and sometimes even the will to live.
Lastly, the fact that your sister has both HIV and TB means that she should be assessed so that she is put on ARVs if she has not yet began using them. This is because the stage at which the infection is at, requires that this should be done.
She is 14 and HIV positive
Dear doctor,
I am caring for my late sister’s daughter who is 14. She is HIV-positive but does not have any signs or symptoms. Her mother told us to just observe the child and only seek treatment when she shows signs. I am wondering what to do now because I also fear telling her she is HIV-positive when her younger siblings are HIV-negative. Please help.
Harriet
Dear Harriet,
Children, like adults, might remain symptom -free for long even when they are infected with HIV. It is wrong for both children and adults to only go for medical check up or care when they show symptoms.
We should avoid thinking that all that matters about HIV/AIDS-care is giving ARVs. In fact people who seek for care and support well before they get serious opportunistic infections tend to do better than their counterparts who wait until they are quite sick before they seek for help. The former have time to be counselled, accept their diagnosis and learn to live positively plus developing coping mechanisms that would help them overcome the challenges HIV poses.
In the case of children, if you wait until a child is sick and then go for care, you may do so when the child’s development is already irreversibly affected.
You should now begin preparing your niece by disclosing to her, her HIV status. It is better done now because she will be in a better state of mind when she is not in pain. The other thing you need to know is the CD4 count of the child because this is the only objective way you can know how much damage the HIV has done to her immune system. Depending only on clinical assessment can be subjective, because one can look well when their immune system is so badly damaged and therefore vulnerable to serious opportunistic infections. We can even measure the viral load of the child as this helps us to find out how active the virus is in the body.
Lastly, all children whose parents died of HIV/AIDS should undergo HIV testing since they could have been infected through mother to child transmission. Since HIV in children is such a nightmare for both health care givers and carers, adults should endeavour to find out their HIV status before having children.
Of the 2.2 million children estimated to be infected with HIV worldwide, over 90% are in poor countries like Uganda and most of them were produced by people who either never knew they were HIV positive or that the virus could be passed on to their children. Now that we know, it must be stopped.
Send your question on HIV to Health Editor, The New Vision.
P. O. Box 9815, Kampala or health&beauty@newvision.co.ug