By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter 
AT THE time of the interview at the Lord's Place, 25-year-old Janet, a pretty fair-skinned woman, had not progressed to the stage of full blown AIDS, but the tell-tale spots of warts marked a highway on her skin.
"He told me I had AIDS on a Sunday morning, I remember it clearly now...he had gone to doctor from Friday, and waited two days to tell me. At first, I thought he was joking but when he didn't take it back by that afternoon I got really worried," she said, explaining how her boyfriend broke the news about his HIV status to her.
"By Monday, the reality of the situation hit me...and I got down on my knees and asked God, 'please, don't let my daughter have HIV, I don't care about myself or my baby father, just don't let her (daughter) have it or I would make sure I walk and give it to every man that I could'," Janet said, with a steely look in her eyes.
However, her daughter tested negative for HIV, and within months, the couple and their daughter were living at the Lord's Place, on Highholborn Street. Janet, who later converted to Christianity, was there for four months when her baby father eventually succumbed to pneumonia and died.
"He died in my arms. I have forgiven him, and I still love him, but I am just sorry I won't be around to take care of my daughter or my other children," she said. Her three older children have been adopted by her family.
That was last December. Janet has since died. Having HIV makes one susceptible to all sorts of
diseases and she eventually succumbed to one of them. However, her daughter, Monicahas been adopted by an American couple, Ted and Elizabeth Willey of Atlanta, Georgia.
HOPE
Father Richard Ho Lung of the Missionaries of the Poor, said Monica's new family had been moved by a higher power to adopt children whose parents have been killed by AIDS.
"She is the second child the Willeys have adopted as they adopted a baby from a Nigerian family who had died of AIDS as well. Monica now lives with her new family in Atlanta...they are a lovely family. The parents had come down, and they worked with us and had met the children here, and they were deeply moved by their faith to adopt Monica," he said.
Monica is one of the lucky ones. Many others like her are dead because of ignorance and poverty of their parents and the lack of antiretroviral drugs that can prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus.
Between January and June this year, there were 37 newly reported cases of children with HIV under the age of 10 and according to figures from the Ministry of Health, about 900 HIV positive pregnant mothers give birth each year.
Worldwide, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) notes that as more infants are born HIV-positive, child mortality rates increase. It is estimated for instance, that six out of every 10 children under five years old who die in the Bahamas die because of AIDS.
REDUCING MOTHER-TO-CHILD TRANSMISSION
The Ministry of Health, in an attempt to save the lives of many babies born to HIV-positive mothers, has launched a programme aimed at reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission. Babies are being given replacement feedings for the first four months of life because the virus can be transmitted through breast milk. The drug Nevirapine, which is said to cut in half the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child is also being widely used in some hospitals. In addition, the new-borns are given a single dose of the drug in the first 72 hours after birth.
Still, in poorer countries like Jamaica which do not have ready access to the most sophisticated anti-retrovirals, the odds are skewed to failure.
"HIV is not genetic, and therefore not automatically passed on from mother to child, it is passed on by blood contact, and I find it miraculous that there are kids who defeat these great odds and live. Monica is one of those...but she is an exception," said Father Ho Lung. There is a 60 per cent chance of an HIV positive mother giving birth to a child that is HIV negative. In developed countries, where longer courses of the antiretroviral drug AZT can be afforded, transmission rate to the unborn child had been reduced to as little as three to five per cent.
"Even now, there is a 17-month-old boy, Jamirwho has tested positive three times for HIV but still hasn't shown any symptoms of AIDS...however, we are keeping our fingers crossed that the fourth test, which will be done in January will turn out negative, and he will be alright," added Father Ho Lung.
In the last three years an average of three children per month die of AIDS related illnesses in Jamaica, and it is estimated that every week two HIV infected children are born.
Names changed to protect identities.
