My name is Sister Liza. I am the head nurse at the Tlaseng Health Clinic in Rustenburg, South Africa, a city northwest of Johannesburg. I have been working at Tlaseng since 1997.
HIV and tuberculosis (TB) are very big problems here and our clinic is extremely busy. We serve about 12,000 people from the community, including many orphans and vulnerable children. The clinic is open 12 hours a day and I see about 60 patients each day. There are only five nurses working here, but we try our very best despite the staff shortage. In fact, Tlaseng recently received an award from the Department of Health for best-performing clinic in the Rustenburg area.
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My name is Godian. I was born in Tanzania's Kagera district in 1954. I am married with four children and I work as a technician for the Tanzanian government in Bariadi.
I have been living with HIV for more than seven years.
I first found out about my HIV status in 2004, a time when very little was known about the virus in the rural community where I lived. After initially falling ill, I visited my local hospital for help but they could not provide a diagnosis. Unable to determine the illness that was causing my symptoms, I left the hospital and travelled nearly 500 miles to a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city.
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My name is Erick and I live in Kilema ward of Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania. I am 48 years old and a secondary school teacher.
In 1998, I became severely ill. I was very sick with fevers, coughing, and headaches, and was admitted at Lugalo Military Hospital. At the time, not much was understood about HIV in Tanzania, so the doctors only treated me for my fever and cough.
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My name is Sabina, and I am 35 years old. I live with my husband Patrick and our four children in Busangi Village, Kahama District, Tanzania.
I work as an embroiderer and make beautiful patterns on cloths. My family and I also depend on our family farm to make a living. We plant rice, maize, and cotton.
I first learned I was HIV-positive in 2009, when I was five months pregnant with my son. I had visited a clinic for a regular prenatal check-up, where I was counseled and tested for HIV and malaria.
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Junior is a chubby, happy, and playful 11-month-old baby. He is the pride and joy of his parents Wenceslaus and Gloria of Ishongororo, a sub-county of Ibanda district, Uganda. And he is free of HIV.
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My name is Lindiwe and I am 34 years old. I have been a nurse for 12 years. I started my career in 1998 as a general nurse but graduated with a diploma in midwifery two years later.
I have been providing prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services since 2005. I have also been trained in child nutrition and HIV care and treatment.
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My name is Josephine, I am 18 years old, and I live in Mukono District, Uganda. I was born with HIV, but I didn’t know my status until about five years ago. You see, I never met my mother; I was told that she died when I was very young. I spent my early childhood living with my father, stepmother, three stepsisters, and a stepbrother.
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My name is Teopista and I am 13 years old. I come from a family of five children from two mothers. After my mother died when I was very young, my father remarried. My stepmother was very nice to all of us, but she also died. I was eight years old at the time, so my father took me to the village to live with my Jjajas (grandparents).
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My name is Esther. I am 17 years old and living with HIV. I come from a big family of 20 children, each of us from a different mother. My father had many wives and children, but we were not close; in fact, I only know two of my siblings.
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Losing a child to HIV is the most horrible thing a mother can go through. Almost 15 years ago, I lost my daughter, Nomthunzi, to AIDS.
I gave birth in September 1996. My husband suddenly fell ill and died three months later. Nomthunzi had also become ill, and so I took her to Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, South Africa. We were both tested for HIV, and we both tested positive.
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