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Loving Care For HIV Positive Children
Robinhills, South Africa -- Eleven unique children currently sleep, eat and play in a home situated in Johannesburg's northern suburb of Robinhills. They may not be brothers and sisters by blood, but they and five caregivers make up a family. Three small ones were abandoned. The remaining six little boys and girls are HIV positive. See how Operation Blessing partners are helping this South African house of love.
Startling for all. It's incomprehensible for those of us not affected, but yet very real. "Since the start of the epidemic, HIV has infected almost 58 million men, women and children, and AIDS has cost the lives of nearly 22 million adults and children. Today AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa, and the fourth worldwide (WHO-UNAIDS HIV Vaccine Initiative)."
Operation Blessing recently received a donation of AIDS medications that included Kaletra and Ritonavir. With a desire to send this life-sustaining product to impoverished children living with AIDS, contact was made with Nick Glomb of The AIDS Clinical Trials Unit at the University of North Carolina. He was familiar with Oasis Haven of Love.
Oasis Haven of Love opened its doors to the first baby almost two-and-a-half years ago. If children are HIV negative, the dedicated staff tries to place them with adoptive parents. If the child is HIV positive, South Africa makes it almost impossible for a family to adopt. In the Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic 2002, The World Health Organization and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimate that five million adults and children living in South Africa have AIDS, and 660,000 children were orphaned due to one or both parents dying from AIDS in 2001.
Providing loving care for one child at a time is what Oasis Haven of love does best. Although too young to understand what's going on, five of six children have began their first regimen of treatment a year ago and are doing well. The sixth child is too young to begin. The arrival of Operation Blessing's donation in the last month will release some of the home's funds for other critical needs for a few months!
You too can provide loving care for the world's impoverished and forgotten by assisting Operation Blessing.
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