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HIV and the orphanages

Nov 24, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
Your article in today’s newspaper (KN 22/11/2010) “HIV infection high among children in orphanages” is misleading to the public and gives the false impression that there is higher HIV transmission in the orphanages.
I was present at the Guyana Medical Scientific Conference and was privy to a presentation of the same research and would like to offer the following comments.
Most of the children who tested positive for HIV were already known to have HIV infection before the research was conducted. These children were placed in orphanages that specifically care for children with HIV infection.
The ages of the children were not presented, but as you can imagine these could possibly be children who acquired HIV infection from their mothers during pregnancy or breastfeeding.
As such, only looking at the numbers shows a high prevalence of HIV infection in the orphanages, further implying high HIV transmission rates. Excluding the children already known to have HIV infection, the prevalence rate is not higher than the national average.
Given that there are cases of pediatric HIV infection in the orphanages, I agree with the authors that there needs to be training of the caregivers on caring of children with HIV infection (if not already present).
I would like to add that there also needs to be health and sexual education for the children, and access to medical clinics for those children who are positive.
Rondell Benn (MBBS)

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