Keep a Child Alive

Since the first case of AIDS was discovered in the US in the early 1980's, it has been found that this virus originated in chimps in Africa as the SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus). It virally transferred to humans in a process called zoonosis and in humans is named HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus).

Since HIV was first recognized in 1981, over 30 million people have died due to HIV/AIDS and currently, more than 33.3 million are living with HIV. The widespread frequency of unprotected sex, mother-to-child transmission, polygamous acts, poverty, sexual abuse and the virgin myth all contribute to the high prevalence of HIV infection in developing countries.

HIV is transmitted through blood and other bodily fluids such as semen and vaginal fluid. This exchange of fluids can occur through sexual intercourse, drug injection, breastfeeding or during pregnancy with an infected mother. You cannot transmit HIV through hugging, kissing, coughing, shaking hands or sharing cutlery!

HIV can be detected through a number of tests with blood or an oral fluid sample.

In the Western World, as soon as one is tested positive for HIV - antiretroviral treatment is recommended to slow down the replication of the virus in the body, which maintains a healthy immune system. A CD4 count is performed to determine the number of healthy T cells that HIV has not infected. In developing countries only when the count is low enough (by UN regulations 350 cells/microlitre) will a patient start on antiretroviral treatment.

Once on AIDS treatment, the aim is to slow down the replication of HIV in the body, which slows the weakening of the immune system. An HIV positive person who adheres to their regimen with the correct nutrition should stay healthy for many years. Antiretroviral treatment is for life. Even when a patient's viral load (the amount of virus in the bodily fluid) is undetectable, the virus can still be transmitted. Unfortunately, an AIDS vaccine has not been developed therefore, Keep a Child Alive's mission is to give patients at our clinics and sites access to this treatment that will prolong their life and maintain a healthy immune system.

Food is essential to nourish and sustain all life, and for people with AIDS proper nutrition is as important to their survival as the drugs themselves. Food helps ARV medications to be absorbed by the body effectively, strengthens the immune system and allows someone with AIDS to experience the transformative effects of the drugs.

But many of the children and families underserved by access to AIDS treatment face the same challenge in getting even the basic nutrition they need to survive. For some, the immediate relief of food to quiet the cries of a child suffering from hunger is preferred to the drugs - even when the drugs can mean long-term survival.

Keep a Child Alive recognizes that food is an integral part of comprehensive treatment for AIDS. In the communities where we work, extreme poverty makes access to critically needed nutrition an impossibility for many in our care. KCA provides food assistance, including monthly food parcels, to patients on ARVs who would go hungry without support for nutrition.

As large-scale relief agencies cut back food aid to countries still reeling from the devastation of the AIDS pandemic, commodities prices soar and disease threatens crop staples, the number of patients in need of nutrition rises daily. Keep a Child Alive is committed to providing comprehensive treatment that includes support for food so that those in our care can be restored to health and productivity.

We live in a world where more than 16 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, 14.9 million in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Keep a Child Alive, founded as an urgent response to access AIDS treatment to the poor, increasingly finds itself responding to the epidemic of orphaned and vulnerable children whose parents could not be saved in time.

In Africa, where before AIDS there was no word for orphan in any language, an entire generation of children has grown into adulthood without the love, care and protection of their parents. AIDS has decimated the extended family system: children have been robbed of their parents, and the elderly left with a generation of grandchildren to raise in their old age. Communities that once formed a safety net that absorbed children in need have long been overwhelmed by the number of orphans left by AIDS stretched beyond their limit to help.

The circumstances faced by these children in their daily struggle to survive - to find shelter, food and safety from the dangers that surround them - demand a greater response from the entire world. Keep a Child Alive is committed to supporting community-based care programs that help children living in child headed-households, care homes for children orphaned by AIDS and alone in the world, and places of safety for the growing number of child victims of rape and abuse.