Sweeta and her husband Sarthak represent the sort of success story that make all the long hours and the big caseloads for community health counselors all worthwhile: both are HIV-positive, while their only son, Sartha, is negative.

Sweeta’s first husband didn’t tell her about his HIV status before they got married; in fact, he didn’t do so until he started suffering from TB and having symptoms of AIDS. He died within six months, and Sweeta tested HIV-positive soon afterward.

Kasongo is one of the male partners of a PMTCT beneficiary, and is doing his part to slowly turn the tide of male partner participation in family health in DRC. Originally from Bandundu Province, Kasongo, 37, and his wife Paula, 27, now live in Kinshasa and have had three children.

During her most recent pregnancy, his wife sought ANC services at Binza Maternity, receiving an HIV test and a paper invitation for Kasongo. When she returned home with the invitation, they discussed the opportunity, and he decided to come in to be tested. Despite two previous pregnancies during which his wife also attended ANC at Binza, this was his first time visiting the ANC.

My name is Julie, and I am a 25-year-old full time mom. I was born HIV-positive in 1987 after my mother had unknowingly acquired the virus through a blood transfusion. Today, because of the medications and services that EGPAF helped to create and share with the world, I was able to become pregnant, and I now have an HIV-negative son. Like so many other HIV-positive pregnant women around the world, I get to experience a healthy, happy, beautiful baby boy without the worry that he will be infected with HIV.

Being an HIV-positive mother was hard then, and it is hard now. However, I gained a lot of strength from my family, my community, the health clinic, and other HIV-positive women I met in a support group called “Waitinya.” In my community’s language of Luyhia, waitinya is a word that means “being hopeful.”

I needed to be hopeful for my children, my husband, and my unborn baby. Today, I am still hopeful, and grateful too.

During pregnancy and after Josphat’s birth, I followed PMTCT guidelines closely. At 18 months, Josphat was tested and found to be free of HIV. Since Josphat’s birth and learning of his HIV-negative status, I’ve continued to attend support group sessions and maintained having regular check-ups at the hospital.

I’m an advocate so other women understand that being HIV positive is not the end. Josphat and I are proof that an HIV-positive woman can have a healthy HIV-negative baby.

My name is Christopher. My wife Everlyne and I are HIV-positive, but our two sons – three-year-old Norus Ombama and nine-month-old Budy Busaia -- are strong, healthy, and HIV-negative. In 2006, while I was still working at Kenya Railways, I had been very sick, so I decided to get tested for HIV. When the tests came back positive, I was afraid to disclose my status to anyone.

I battled with the sad news for one week before I told my wife. After being tested, she found out that she, too, was HIV-positive. We started going to counseling and were started on antiretroviral therapy (ART) immediately.

Florentine is a young woman living and working in Bamenda, Cameroon. When she was 19 years old, Florentine received two pieces of good news during a visit to her physician: she was pregnant and HIV-negative. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the truth. Not only did she later find out that she was HIV-positive, but when her father-in-law discovered her status, he asked Florentine to leave his home.

Florentine’s parents took her in, and she received follow-up antenatal care at a health facility run by Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS), one of EGPAF's partners in PMTCT services.

A nurse, Florence has a goal to save her fellow health workers from preventable HIV deaths – and she is starting in Busia District Hospital in Kenya, where she works. Like many of her patients, she is also living with HIV. EGPAF met up with Florence during a trip to Kenya’s Western Province, where EGPAF is part of APHIA Plus, a five-year, USAID-funded project that includes HIV care and treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).

Many people think that contracting HIV is the end of life. I am against this myth. I have HIV and I live a very happy and productive life.

My name is Tina. I am 30 years old. I live in Karatu District in the Arusha Region of Tanzania. In 2000, my husband and I got married. A year into our marriage I delivered my first child, a baby boy we named Arnold.
 

My name is Hydeia, and I was born in southern Nevada. Soon after my birth, I was abandoned at a hospital and later adopted. Little did anyone know, I was living with HIV. It wasn’t until I was three years old that we learned the truth: I was HIV-positive.