VietNamNet Bridge – Women only knew that their husbands had infected them when they were pregnant.

Doctor Bui Thi Chut from the Hanoi Obstetrics Hospital told VietNamNet that she has examined thousands of pregnant women over nearly 20 years. She could not forget some special cases, including women who were cheated into marrying HIV carriers.

According to doctor Chut, most are rural women. They all knew that they were infected with HIV from their husbands when they were pregnant and had the first examination at hospital.

The youngest victim is a 17-year-old woman from Nam Dinh province. Through a matchmaker, she agreed to marry a man in Hanoi, who was young, handsome, and rich.

She got pregnant several months after the wedding. Her mother-in-law took her to the Hanoi Obstetrics Hospital for a check-up. Holding the test result in her hands, the young woman discovered that she was a HIV carrier.

She said she had sex only with her husband. When doctors asked her husband to the hospital for tests, they were shocked when the girl’s mother-in-law said: “My son has had HIV for a long time”.

It turned out that the mother cheated the 17-year-old girl in order to have grandchildren. “I have only one son. If he doesn’t get marry and have children, my family will be heirless,” she told doctors.

Doctor Chut said the eldest victims are only 19 years old. But it is unacceptable that these women were not shocked when they knew that they were infected with HIV.

“Because they don’t know what HIV is and whether it is dangerous or not. Some of them told me that they had heard about it and they didn’t have any reaction. They didn’t know enough about the disease to be shocked,” doctor Chut said.

The patients told doctor Chut that they got married with rich men from the city to change their lives.

The mothers-in-law who cheated these girls thought that it would be good for them to seek rural girls because they are poorly educated and if they find out the truth, they will accept the fate.

Doctor Chut said that pre-marriage health examinations must be legalized to avoid such cases. It is necessary along with the development of sperm banks.

If a mother is carrying HIV, her child will not be infected if she takes anti-HIV before and after delivering the child.

HIV carriers can also have healthy children using sperm filtering technique.

Doctor Chut also said that the healthcare sector must do many things to improve the knowledge of diseases for the people, especially those in rural and mountainous areas.

The girls who were cheated to marry HIV carriers all live in rural villages that are not very far from Hanoi but even they didn’t know about HIV.

PV