Marking World AIDS Day - December 1, 2013

Contact: Andrea Rhodes, +44 (0) 118-952-1428

SWINDON, England, Nov. 26, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- An HIV-positive widow in Ethiopia is helping hundreds of pregnant women living with the virus to deliver healthy, HIV-free babies - with a 99% success rate.

Hirut Alemayhu hid the fact that she was HIV-positive for years, even from her daughter. But today she is a powerful force in the fight against HIV/AIDS in her local community, particularly focusing on pregnant women.

"My revenge against HIV is that I am using all my strength to stop new infections," she says. "I use every opportunity to talk to people about HIV/AIDS but I am especially concerned about pregnant women. I seek them out and urge them to get tested. If they have HIV, I make sure they get the right treatment and advice so they don't pass it onto their unborn children. At one point I had 360 women on my follow-up list and they gave birth to 359 HIV-free babies!"

Mrs. Alemayhu's dedicated work, which she does entirely as a volunteer, is contributing to UNAIDS's 'Getting to Zero' strategy, which aims to get to 'zero new infections, zero discrimination, zero AIDS-related deaths' by 2015. Thanks to the combined efforts of governments, NGOs, churches and other organisations and, not least of all, of people like Mrs. Alemayhu, good progress been made over the past few years.

UNAIDS has reported a 35% drop in the number of newly infected children since 2009, and that 62% of pregnant women are now taking antiretroviral drugs. The report also shows other significant gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

So how did Mrs Alemayhu change from a frightened woman hiding a terrible secret into a passionate HIV/AIDS campaigner making a real difference in people's lives? She says that getting involved in the Bible-based HIV/AIDS education program, the Good Samaritan Program, was a turning point for her.

"When my husband died of AIDS, people said that getting the virus was a punishment for sin," she says. "So when I found out I had HIV, I felt ashamed and kept it a secret, even lying to my eight-year-old daughter about it.

"I was in pain for years but everything changed for me when I was invited to a Good Samaritan Program workshop. I learned that HIV/AIDS was an illness like any other, that it can be treated and that I could live a good, productive life."

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