Sitting next to her 9-year-old sister, Hana, Nina calmly munched her lunch of fried chicken rolls and rice.
Nina, 5, looks like any other little girl — but she has been through a lot. She is HIV positive.
The girls’ mother, Indah Kumala, discovered that she was infected with HIV after burying her husband a few years ago. She tested her family and learned that only Hana was uninfected.
Indah said that she enrolled Nina in kindergarten without telling the school about the child’s condition to avoid discrimination.
The last time Indah discussed Nina’s health openly she was not able to get aid to pay her daughter’s medical bills because treatment of HIV/AIDS was not covered by most health insurance, she said.
“If I open up, it will create difficulties in our lives. At this age, she cannot infect other people. I hope that I will be able to send both of my girls to public elementary schools,” she said.
More than two decades after the first infection was reported in Indonesia, people living with HIV/AIDS are still ostracized by the community.
The stigmatization is often worse when the disease afflicts children.
Syamsurizal Djauzi, who works for Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital’s HIV care unit, said that HIV-positive children should be allowed to enroll in public schools.
In reality, there were precedents where students were expelled when schools found out about their condition, he said.
“Many parents worry about children with HIV infecting their peers during a bite fight, but the truth is the percentage of the HIV virus in saliva or blood is smaller than when compared to, for example, hepatitis,” he said.
“But HIV needs more care, of course,” he added.
He said that if schools and teachers were provided with sufficient information about the illness, there would be no need to worry since kindergarten to elementary schoolchildren were not yet sexually active.
He added that after the children reached puberty they should learn about the Stop Right Here program, which encourages them to take care of themselves so that the virus would not be transferred further.
“We have a couple of cases involving a positive man and a negative women, or vice versa, or even when both positive, and we can help them to have negative children,” he said.
According to Health Ministry data, as of September there were 22,726 cases of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia, including 17,576 cases (79 percent) afflicting people between the productive ages of 20 to 39 years.
In 2009, there were 3,045 new cases of HIV/AIDS afflicting children, bringing the total number of cases involving children in Indonesia to 7,546.
The Health Ministry estimated that there would be 5,775 new cases of HIV/AIDS by 2014, which would afflict a total of 34,287 children throughout Indonesia.
Just like their uninfected peers, children with HIV/AIDS also need an education.
Several NGOs such as The Light of Knowledge Foundation (YPI) and The Friends’ Poems Foundation (YSS) provide information about HIV/AIDS to schools.
YPI has worked with 250 high schools in Jakarta.
YSS holds informal education courses for children with HIV/AIDS.
Husein Habsyi from YPI said his foundation also offered prevention and HIV-positive support programs.
He said that his foundation currently assisted around 50 children with HIV/AIDS, with 30 children receiving financial support for their educations.
He added that 25 percent of the children were orphans who were presently under the care of extended family members, such grandmothers or aunts, after their parents died.
The government recently observed HIV/AIDS day at the National Education Ministry in a sign that the government is concerned about educating the nation on the disease.
“Other than educating society, the government will need to involve children and people with HIV/AIDS in the education program, too,” said Husein. (thejakartapost.com)
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