In Africa HIV-infected babies are still born every day because the mothers are infected. Orange Babies can’t accept this because with the proper medication and care, transmission can be prevented. Therefore we fight every day to make treatment accessible for everyone. Orange Babies believes in a world where children get a healthy start in life - without HIV. A society in which children, also the ones that experience the HIV epidemic at first hand, will have equal opportunities. Does our battle have an impact? Baba Sylla, founder of Orange Babies, answers this question:
Yes, because we’ve saved thousands of lives over the past years. And have helped hundreds of thousands of persons. All mothers and babies in our centres are the living proof of this fact.
Yes, because everywhere in Africa government organisations are looking for specific solutions and are offering help. HIV testing is promoted. Education is given. People are fighting stigmatisation and denial .
Yes, because according to the UNAIDS numbers, the number of new HIV infections keeps dropping constantly. While for example in Asia it goes up. So our prevention programmes work and hopefully people elsewhere will learn from our experiences.
Yes, because according to the UNAIDS experts, current HIV inhibitors are so effective that the number of new infections would drop drastically, even virtually stop if everybody would receive a treatment.
Reasons enough to keep up hope and to continue doing what we started doing in 1999: helping mothers and babies because they need our help the most.
