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Cesarean Birth a "Human Right" By Nefer Muñoz SAN JOSE Discrimination against, and inadequate treatment for those living with HIV, especially pregnant women, remains a major problem in the developing South, says Rita Arauz, one of Central America"s leading experts on HIV/AIDS. "In many poor countries, women with HIV/AIDS do not receive proper treatment in hospitals at the time of giving birth," she adds, pointing out that the right medical treatment, including a caesarean birth, gives babies born to HIV-positive mothers a much better chance of avoiding infection. "Pregnant women with HIV/AIDS must receive special treatment, and health professionals recommend that the birth be caesarean," explains Arauz, adding that an HIV-positive pregnant woman who gives birth by caesarean reduces the risk of transmitting the disease to her baby to just eight percent. In a normal birth, she says, the risk of mother-to-child transmission is as high as 30 to 40 percent. Arauz, who has been fighting for human rights for three decades in Nicaragua, has focused her efforts for the past 15 years on defending the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, and is regarded as one of Central America's leading experts on the epidemic. When an HIV-positive woman has a normal birth rather than a caesarean, the human rights of both the mother and the newborn are violated, says the psychologist, who last year, was one of four activists worldwide to receive the ""Race Against Poverty" award granted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to individuals who have done outstanding work in the struggle for boosting the quality of life among the poor. In 1990, Arauz founded the non-governmental organisation Nimehuatzin in Nicaragua, with the aim of providing support to men and women living with HIV/AIDS. Nimehuatzin -an indigenous word that means ""we are rising up for a noble cause" -also is carrying out a campaign to eradicate the stigma attached to the disease. Arauz says her focus is on the discrimination suffered by men, women and children with HIV/AIDS in poor countries, where "discrimination is very strong, and occurs at all levels of society". "When someone arrives at a public hospital and is found to test positive for HIV, they are commonly told that they can no longer be attended there," she adds. This gives rise to a vicious circle: HIV/AIDS sufferers tend to keep their disease secret for fear of discrimination in the workplace, the family and the community, thus putting others at risk of infection, Arauz says. Data from the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) indicates that the epidemic is growing steadily in the Americas. There are currently 2.7 million HIV-carriers in the Americas, more than 1.7 million of whom are in Latin America, 390,000 in the Caribbean, and nearly one million in the United States and Canada. An estimated 600 to 700 new HIV infections are reported in the Americas daily, while around 100,000 people died of AIDS last year, according to PAHO. Arauz believes that the disease is becoming an invisible problem in Central America because in poor countries, people who are HIV positive "will continue hiding their condition due to the discrimination" they face, and because many governments in the developing South are unaware of the full extent of its impact. In
poor countries, we need to see a greater political will and more
support for people who have contracted the disease, because the
virus is spreading,"" Arauz says. |
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