Damian Pighin and Ariel Vijarra with their daughter Olivia (Twitter)
A gay couple in Argentina have adopted a baby that was rejected by 10 other families because she is HIV positive.
Damian Pighin and Ariel Vijarra decided to adopt as far back as 2011, and in 2014 they received a call to say that a newborn baby was ready to join their family, UNILAD reports.
The girl had been born with HIV and had tragically been rejected by 10 other families.
But her HIV-status did not matter to Pighin and Vijarra. Speaking to local media, Ariel said that he knew she was meant to be part of his life as soon as he saw her.
“The connection was immediate. We held her in our arms, gave her the bottle and she looked at us with her eyes wide open without crying,” he said.
Their daughter is on treatment and the virus is now undetectable.
The girl – who is called Olivia – is now on treatment for HIV and the virus is now undetectable as a result.
A year later, a woman approached them and said she had heard about their story and wanted them to adopt her daughter too. They agreed and shortly afterwards welcomed their second daughter Victoria into the world.
The connection was immediate. We held her in our arms, gave her the bottle and she looked at us with her eyes wide open without crying.
The couple works for a non-governmental agency called Acunar Familias which translates as Cradle Families where they help couples adopt children.
The heartwarming story comes just months after a new study, called PARTNER2, proved that there is zero risk of transmitting HIV while on antiretroviral treatment.
HIV is untransmittable when on effective treatment
The study was published in The Lancet in May and investigated almost 1,000 gay male couples who did not use condoms across Europe over more than eight years where one partner had the virus.
Over the course of eight years, just 15 of the HIV-negative men involved contracted the virus – however researchers were able to confirm through genetic testing that none of those men contracted the virus from their partner.
Meanwhile, researchers at Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine revealed in September that they had “functionally cured” mice carrying the HIV virus.
The mice were given a “long-acting slow-effective release” form of antiretroviral therapy as a part of the treatment. The researchers also used a gene editing tool to extract the remnants of the virus.
apesmack on October 17th, 2019 at 19:30 UTC »
I work in an agency that places children for adoption and foster care, and let me tell you, nontraditional families, especially older gay men, are far, far more likely to take children with disabilities, illnesses, deformities, behaviors, etc. I think its because they know what it's like to be thrown away by society. I really appreciate them.
beanomly on October 17th, 2019 at 18:39 UTC »
When my son was adopted, he had hepatitis c. At the time, the only cure was nine months of treatment with chemo-like side effects and a 50% success rate. I always wondered how many other families would have refused to adopt him because of that.
When he was eight, I was able to get him into a pediatric Harvoni clinical trial and he’s been hepatitis free for four years now.
Jessielieb12 on October 17th, 2019 at 18:23 UTC »
Hi, as an hiv positive person it's a little disheartening to see so much misinformation about hiv in this thread so I hope it's ok for me to explain a little bit! 1. Anyone can contract HIV 2. Medicine has come a long way, hiv is no longer a death sentence. With meds and care, an hiv positive person can become undetectable which means they can't infect another person and also the amount of virus in their body is low enough to where it doesn't effect the immune system 3. HIV can only be spread through blood and some other body fluids such as vaginal secretions and semen. It cannot be spread through tears, saliva, or sweat. 4. Hiv positive people are not "dirty" or "sluts" or anything like that, a lot of people with hiv haven't even had sex. There are a number of ways to contact it and most of the times, the people spreading it don't know they have it. It only takes one encounter to become positive unfortunately. However, quality of life for hiv positive people is exactly the same as negative people now thanks to medicine! So that's great
EDIT: it should be said that I live in the US and get my meds for free through a non profit. If I downplayed HIV I'm very sorry. It is still an extremely serious disease. That does not mean, however, that people with hiv cant be happy or healthy. Thank you for all, I didn't think this would blow up at all.
EDIT 2: Also! There's a thing called prep which is medicine you can take everyday that can protect you from contracting hiv (of course always use condoms and other forms of protection this is just an added step) if you have sex with someone and say a condom breaks or such, there is also PEP which can prevent it after the fact I think up to 2 days after exposure.