23 children under nine have HIV in Fiji

The network’s advocacy coordinator Joeli Colati told media that the major mode of transmission is from mother to child for these cases while a case reported in 2000 was through sexual abuse.

The child was 10 years old at the time of the incident and is now 21 years old working in providing care and support to others living with HIV.

The Ministry of Health is also worried that some HIV/AIDS patients in Fiji are turning to herbal medicine as an alternative, saying such patients should be discouraged from this as it could lead to early death.

Michel Sidibe, Under Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNAIDS, visited Fiji for two days earlier this month, who had met women living with HIV, representatives of key affected populations and selected leaders of civil society organizations, as well as Fiji’s President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau and Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.

According to Fiji’s Health Minister Doctor Neil Sharma, Sidibe, who visited the ante-natal clinic at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, was interested in Fiji’s program regarding the prevention of parent to child transmission (PPTCT).

The visit was significant and Fiji was committed to the goal of seeing that by 2012, says Sharma, adding that the island nation’s commitment to the three zeros of zero new HIV/AIDS infections, zero HIV/AIDS related deaths and zero discrimination has not gone unnoticed by the United Nations.

“It is good to note that the work Fiji is doing has been recognized by the UNAIDS and this visit by Sidibe will add more strength to the work that we continue to do in regards of eliminating PPTCT cases in the country,”Sharma says. <Xinhua>

news@theasian.asia