Evelyne Simaloi is a mother of two. She was diagnosed with HIV in 1998
and told she only had 5 years to live. Photo/SALATON KAMAU
Evelyne
Simaloi is not new to the limelight. The first time she was featured in
the media she had declared her HIV positive status and was taking
herbal drugs that were said to cure Aids.
After close
to a year of not seeing any considerable change in her health, she
reluctantly opted to go for anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs which she was
initially opposed to.
Within a month of taking ARVs her viral load went down and her CD4 cells count had increased ten-fold.
Within a month of taking ARVs her viral load went down and her CD4 cells count had increased ten-fold.
“Before
I started taking the herbal medication my CD4 count was 54, after two
months it had moved to 94. But three months after starting to take
ARVs, the count was well over 700,” she said.
Nairobi-based
Simaloi was diagnosed with HIV in 1998 and doctors told her that she
had only five years to live, which made her plunge into a life of
alcohol and drugs.
“At that time I was young and had
just applied for a job at a hotel and one of the requirements was that
I undergo a medical examination. That is how I got to learn that I was
HIV positive. When I confronted the man whom I lived with he admitted
that he had infected me,” she said.
Ms Simaloi said
that using protection during sex was rare in the 1990s. After being
infected, Ms Simaloi said, she opted to stay constantly high to
temporarily forget her predicament. Soon she parted ways with her
partner.
DENIAL
Five
years passed and still death did not visit her, another year lapsed
while she was still in denial. In the seventh year, she realised that
she needed to take control of her life.
That was after she was raped while heading to a chang’aa drinking den and nine months later she gave birth to a baby boy.
“I
became very spiritual and believed strongly that God had healed me, but
my son kept falling sick. When we both got tested we were found to be
HIV positive. Rather than embark on treatment I went in search of
herbalists who said they could heal us,” she said.
Last
year another man came into Ms Simaloi’s life. “I felt as if I was
growing old and that I needed to have a second child, so I told my
partner and we took the necessary precautions. He took Nevirapine for
28 days within which time I tried to conceive,” she said, admitting
that she had hoped to have a girl.
As fate would have it, her second conception was confirmed when she went for an ultrasound test.
Believing that her friends and family were aware of her HIV status, Ms Simaloi told them that she was expecting another child.
“The
moment I went public there were mixed reactions; few congratulations
and very many condemnations. People would ask me how I could be so
selfish since I already had a HIV-positive child.
‘‘Some
said that I was being mean to the children, many cautioned me against
breast-feeding so as not to infect the baby. There were all sorts of
reactions and some scared me,” she said.
When her
bundled of joy arrived last April, Ms Simaloi stuck to her decision to
exclusively breast-feed the baby as both were under treatment.
This is what the doctors advised her to do and what the World Health Organisation advocates.
The
road was, however, not smooth. When she took the baby for testing to
determine whether he had been infected, the HIV positive results from
an Elisa (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test almost broke her
heart.
“I thought I had infected my baby but doctors
told me not to worry as the test was mainly detecting my antibodies
which were present in his blood. They said a PCR (polymerase chain
reaction) test would give a more definitive answer and they encouraged
me to continue breast-feeding him,” she said.
The
second scare was more real, Ms Simaloi’s nipple began to crack and the
possibility of infecting her son became more palpable. One of her
friends introduced her to a children’s nutritionist in the hope that
she would help Ms Simaloi abandon breast-feeding all together.
The
nutritionist advised her to continue breast-feeding her son as the
cracks were not open wounds, adding that her baby was not in any danger.
After five months Ms Simaloi opted to introduce her son to porridge in order to satisfy his growing demand for food.
“I
noticed that with the porridge he would be able to sleep for at least
three hours in the night before I could give him milk,” she explained.
When her son’s results from the PCR test came out negative, Ms Simaloi went around declaring them to all including doomsayers.
According
to new guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), an HIV
positive woman can breast-feed her baby in collaboration with medics.
She must, however, breast-feed exclusively and she or her newborn need to receive ARTs at the same time.
SPONSORS WITHDREW
Ms
Simaloi had been advised against giving him water during the first six
months for fear that it could damage his digestive system.
Out
of curiosity, Ms Simaloi took her son to a private clinic for the
second testing after she introduced him to semisolid foods. The results
remained negative, much to her joy.
The outspoken
Simaloi said that she used to have a show aired on a community radio
station that helped create awareness about Aids among Kibera residents
but sponsors withdrew it.
“I used to go on air for a
one- hour show once a week, but when I became very sick in 2011 the
sponsorship was withdrawn. Right now I run two anonymous groups on
Facebook, one for HIV positive mothers and another for people living
with Aids. It is a closed group and one has to send me a message to
allow them to join,” she explained.
Among some of the
fears that she helps mothers living with HIV overcome are those of
infecting their babies, the trauma of finding out their positive status
while expecting, doubting their ability to exclusively breast-feed as
well as managing discordant relationships.
“Research
has proven that it is safe for a mother living with HIV, and on a full
combination of ARVs, to breast-feed exclusively for six months in order
to build the immune system of her child. If you miss breast-feeding the
baby will be sickly and you will always be in hospital with him,” she
said.
Ms Simaloi said that she plans to ensure that
by 2015 there are zero infections for members of her group. Those who
know their HIV status do not infect their partners, and children born
to positive mothers can turn out healthy and HIV negative, she said.
‘‘One can be able to live well when they get tested, know their status and accept it,’’ she said.
Even
with the progress that has been made to reduce the prevalence of HIV in
the country, stigma against people living positively is still rife.
This is further fuelled by lack of adequate staff to create awareness
of the pandemic.
It is on this basis that
Mothers2Mothers (m2m), an international non-profit organisation
dedicated to preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, trains
Mentor Mothers.
These are mothers living with HIV who are trained to work alongside medical professionals in under-staffed areas.
In
an interview with the Business Daily, the organisation’s Country
Representative, Ms Nicole Sijenyi Fulton, said that they train the
mothers on how to exclusively breast-feed their children for six months
and continue with supplementary feeding until the child is one year old.
They do this while continuing with the ARV protocol recommended by their doctors.
REPLACEMENT FEEDING
“There
are some regions where leaders have embraced replacement feeding for
positive mothers and it becomes hard for health workers to advocate for
exclusive breast-feeding.
At times many of the women
believe that the breast milk is not enough for their baby even though
mixed feeding is not recommended,” she said while explaining some of
the challenges that mentor mothers experience.
Apart
from mothers’ fears over the amount of milk produced for their babies,
Ms Fulton said that some women resist exclusive breast-feeding.
“For
them it is not about the perceived lack of sufficient milk, they fear
that if they exclusively breast-feed their children HIV negative
mothers who begin weaning their children at about four months would
start suspecting that they are positive. This is something that all
stakeholders must address through vigorous awareness creation,” she
said.
This story first appeared in the Business Daily
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