One of the most destructive and terrible epidemics in the history of mankind is the spreading HIV infection. Unfortunately, in recent years, the number of women of childbearing age infected with this insidious disease has increased. It's no secret that such a mother can give birth to both an HIV-infected child and a healthy child. And every woman infected with this virus has a chance: if the mother passes a full course of HIV prevention during pregnancy, the risk of having a sick child will be only 3%.
Symptoms of HIV infection in a child
Infection with the baby's virus can occur both before and after his birth, and, unfortunately, it is not immediately diagnosed, but only to the 3rd year of the child's life. Only 10-20% of children in their first year of life have HIV symptoms. In infants infected after infancy, life is divided into successive periods of good and bad health. But, unfortunately, the state of the immune system deteriorates with time, and in 30% of HIV-infected children there is pneumonia, accompanied by a cough and an increase in the tips of the toes or hands. Similarly, HIV infection in at least half of infected children causes such a serious illness as pneumonia, which is the main cause of their death. Many are diagnosed with a delay in mental and psychomotor development: speech, walking, coordination of movements suffer.
The answer to the important question "how many children live with HIV?" Depends on how timely the therapy began. This frightening all infection in our time of rapidly developing technologies is not a death sentence, and if HIV treatment for children is successful, they will live long enough.
In addition to the characteristics of the course of HIV infection in children compared with adults, there are also differences in the manifestation of the disease depending on age: babies infected in the womb carry it much harder. In general, HIV-positive babies can live a normal life, and with successful treatment, and a healthy child. If this trouble has bypassed you, spend from time to time the prevention of AIDS among your children, calling for a healthy lifestyle and certain precautions.