AIDS orphans survive in mountains

The new year has arrived for the ethnic Yi minority, Mahaigguo has been busy drying corn in the sun in front of her adobe hut in a mountain village in southwestern Sichuan Province. Corn is the only food available for Mahaigguo and her seven-year-old grandson Qubiamu (pseudonym) during the new year festivities. The Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture features the largest settlement of the Yi people in China. Although the region is bestowed with spectacular scenery, local people have lived in the shadow of HIV/AIDS since the mid 1990s, when many young adults moved to cities and some subsequently got infected with HIV through intravenous drug abuse. When Qubiamu was five months old, his mother divorced his father Qubilali, who had been addicted to drugs. Qubilali died from AIDS two years later. Qubiamu's mother later succumbed to the disease because of the drug addiction too. "I hate drugs which had claimed my son's life and harmed many people," Mahaigguo said. The first HIV-positive case was found in 1995 in the prefecture. A total of 21,565 HIV carriers have been reported in Liangshan as of the end of 2010. It is estimated that there are about 5,910 AIDS orphans in the prefecture. Considering children who have been abandoned after divorces and from single-parent families, the number of kids lacking parental care may be greater than 6,000, the prefecture civil affairs bureau estimates. SCHOOL FOR LUCKY Although the AIDS orphans of Liangshan are faced with many challenges, there are a few among them who have enjoyed some relief through the caring of volunteers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). A class for AIDS orphans, established in 2006 by a women and children development center at the Sikai Township School in Zhaojue County, started receiving funding in 2009 from the China Red Ribbon Foundation, an NGO dedicated to AIDS prevention and control. Shamayi (pseudonym), a 16-year-old Yi girl, is one of the 14 AIDS orphans in the class. "I am so lucky to get a chance to go to school, as my younger brother and sister are still helping my grandma with farm work in our village," Shamayi said, citing that she did not quite remember her parents, since they died from AIDS when she was very young. Although the local civil affairs bureau provides an annual subsidy of 1,200 yuan (188 U.S. dollars) for each AIDS orphan, the money is insufficient to cover living expenses of such orphans if they continue studying, a school principal Shama said. They desperately need more help from charity funds, NGOs and individual volunteers, he said. The AIDS orphans are still faced with many problems. Those, who are lucky enough to depend on relatives or family friends, might also be infected with HIV themselves as a result of contracting the disease during delivery from maternal bodies.  (pseudonym), an eight-year-old girl whose parents both died from AIDS, was hospitalized last week in Zhaojue County due to a fever and pneumonia. A blood test at the hospital revealed that she was HIV positive. "She is in critical condition. HIV carriers tend to die from opportunistic infections like pneumonia," Yang Hongbin, a vice hospital president, said. The girl lives with her grandmother in a remote mountain village in Zhaojue. Bumpy and long mountain roads have separated many ethnic Yi people from the rest of the world. They rarely elect to leave villages to see doctors, only undertaking the journey if their illnesses are serious enough. "It is hard to estimate how many AIDS orphans are in mountainous villages in Liangshan," Yang said.