HIV Positive Mothers in Venezuela Face an Impossible Choice
HIV Positive Mothers in Venezuela Face an Impossible Choice
As shortages force HIV positive Venezuelans to go without treatment, new mothers are left with few safe options to care for their babies.
Missing treatment can make things very bad, very quickly for those with HIV. Even one missed dose carries the risk of the virus becoming more resistant – and more dangerous. In Venezuela, shortages of vital medicines have interrupted the treatment of approximately 80 percent of people with HIV, and the consequences have been deadly. In 2012 there were 2,100 HIV-related deaths in all of Venezuela; so far in 2017, there have been over 1,600 in Carabobo state alone, home to just 7 percent of the total population.
This lack of medicine is far from the only threat facing Venezuelans...
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