The Hindu : Orphan's fate hangs in balance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 27, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Orphan's fate hangs in balance

By Suresh Krishnamoorthy

HOPE IN HER EYES: Eleven-month-old Asha at `Diya' , the rehabilitation centre being run by the Freedom Foundation. ---Photo: P. V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD April 26. Ultra modern testing facilities should have cleared all the doubts about her being afflicted with the deadly AIDS. But in the case of Asha, a 14-month-old orphan, confusion still prevails with conflicting lab reports about her being HIV positive or negative.

The only saving grace is that Asha is blissfully unaware of the impending controversy over the lab reports, but for her caretakers at the Freedom Foundation, a voluntary organisation which takes care of AIDS patients, it's an agonising wait.

Two days after her birth, Asha was abandoned by her mother in an overflowing dustbin in Nalgonda town last year. When passers-by noticed the infant battling for life, she only had a monkey for company. The infant was shifted to the Freedom Foundation in Hyderabad on the fifth day, after a preliminary tri-dot HIV screening test at the Government hospital in Nalgonda found her HIV positive.

After the girl's health stabilised at her new home in Hyderabad, her blood was sent for further tests when she was 11 months old. Vimta Labs, a reputed agency which conducted the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test for HIV antigens found her blood samples `not reactive to HIV-1 or HIV-2 antigens' in its report dated December 20, 2002. Resident doctors at the foundation were a bit puzzled over the contradiction. While the tri-dot test found her positive, the PCR test by Vimta labs found her HIV negative.

The Foundation could not take it easy anymore and went for a second opinion. Blood samples were sent this time to the SRL Ranbaxy Clinical Reference Laboratories.

Here is where the confusion began. SRL Ranbaxy lab in its report given on December 30, 2002 certified that she was HIV positive. ''... visualising a band of 130 bp in the test sample and positive control compared against a low mass DNA ladder confirms her HIV positive'', the report asserted.

Worried over the contradictory findings, Freedom Foundation sought yet another expert analysis from Myco Viran lab in Mumbai. The third report, however, maintained that the `the serology shows that specimen is not reactive to HIV-1 or HIV-2 antigens', confirming that Asha tested negative for HIV.

Troy, the resident doctor at the Freedom Foundation, is at a loss over the contradictory reports, two certifying that Asha is not HIV positive and the other two confirming that she was indeed HIV positive (though the tri-dot test done first is very preliminary in nature). "Which report do we believe,'' is the big question that is now staring on the faces of Dr. Troy, Karl Sequiera, head of the Freedom Foundation and Asha's other friends there.

Into her 14th month, Asha has no health complications now. The bubbly girl is the cynosure of all eyes in her home. The tiny tot, Dr. Troy maintains, is in the best of her health. She has a fairly regular routine with the others at `Diya', the rehabilitation centre at the Freedom Foundation. There are 15 more children at Diya who are afflicted with HIV.

Asha's diet consists of rice, dal, vegetables and lots of milk. The little girl's life now revolves around Zakiya Banu, the in-charge of Diya, and Leena, the nurse-on-call. The duo take care of all the inmates of Diya.

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