Meet baby boy Himal, from Jhapa. He is just 10 months old, and was in our Paediatrics ward when I was posted there. He was admitted to investigate for his recurrent severe pneumonia. After admission, a proper medical history was taken. Family history revealed that both his parents died due to complications of AIDS. He has a elder brother, just 6 years old, who has recently been tested positive. Both the boys live with their grandmother who has no source of income and no family support. The reason for the baby boy's recurrent pneumonia was apparent, but I was waiting for the test results with crossed fingers. The results came, it was positive for HIV. But there still remains a small hope that it might be the antibodies from the mother's blood that would clear off after he is about 2 years of age. When my seniors were investigating more and trying to fit him into a classification of HIV, I was thinking about the future of the boy. How could his parents be so ignorant? They alre
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