Mother’s journey from HIV infection to medicare and breast-feeding a healthy son

Ms Evelyne Simaloi. She runs two anonymous groups on Facebook, one for HIV positive mothers and another for people living with Aids. She plans to ensure that by 2015 there are zero infections for members of her group. Those who know their HIV status do not infect their partners, and children born to positive mothers can turn out healthy and HIV negative. Photo/Salaton Njau 

By Sandra Chao

In Summary

• Nairobi-based Evelyne Simaloi was diagnosed with HIV in 1998 and doctors told her that she had only five years to live.
• Ms Simaloi runs two anonymous groups on Facebook, one for HIV positive mothers and another for people living with Aids.
• Among some of the fears that she helps mothers living with HIV overcome are those of infecting their babies, the trauma of finding out their positive status while expecting, doubting their ability to exclusively breast-feed as well as managing discordant relationships.

Evelyne Simaloi is not new to the limelight. The first time she was featured in the media she had declared her HIV positive status and was taking herbal drugs that were said to cure Aids.

After close to a year of not seeing any considerable change in her health, she reluctantly opted to go for anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs which she was initially opposed to.


Within a month of taking ARVs her viral load went down and her CD4 cells count had increased ten-fold.

“Before I started taking the herbal medication my CD4 count was 54, after two months it had moved to 94. But three months after starting to take ARVs, the count was well over 700,” she said.

Nairobi-based Simaloi was diagnosed with HIV in 1998 and doctors told her that she had only five years to live, which made her plunge into a life of alcohol and drugs.

“At that time I was young and had just applied for a job at a hotel and one of the requirements was that I undergo a medical examination. That is how I got to learn that I was HIV positive. When I confronted the man whom I lived with he admitted that he had infected me,” she said.

Ms Simaloi said that using protection during sex was rare in the 1990s. After being infected, Ms Simaloi said, she opted to stay constantly high to temporarily forget her predicament. Soon she parted ways with her partner.

Denial

Five years passed and still death did not visit her, another year lapsed while she was still in denial. In the seventh year, she realised that she needed to take control of her life.
That was after she was raped while heading to a chang’aa drinking den and nine months later she gave birth to a baby boy.