Feature: HIV positive mother: I want to live for my children

Jiq Qoexi (not her real name) is pregnant with her third child. Her only hope is that she has "a healthy boy". Unbeknown to her at the time, her first child was born with HIV.

Jiq, 37, lives in Muzhaluo village in Zhaojue County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. Five years ago, she, along with her newborn child and husband, tested positive for HIV.

"Qula [not his real name] was born at home, but he was a sickly child and constantly feverish. When I took him to the local hospital he tested positive for the virus," she said.

Zhaojue County is only about 100 kilometers away from the prefecture capital Xichang, home to a satellite launch center. However, in sharp contrast to Xichang's prosperous reputation as a result of its thriving aerospace industry, Zhaojue is synonymous with poverty and HIV/AIDS.

Liangshan prefecture is located along a major drug trafficking route from the Golden Triangle, the infamous heroin production and distribution hub. It is also the largest residential area of the Yi ethnic minority. From 1995 to 2014, the prefecture recorded 35,329 cases of HIV/AIDS, currently it has 21,631 people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).

Sadly, Jiq's story is not unique: Her husband, like many people in the area, was once an intravenous drug user (IDU) who had contracted HIV through sharing needles. Many other women contracted HIV in similar circumstances, leading to an increase of mother-to-child transmission.

In 2009, the Liangshan Prefecture mother-to-child HIV transmission prevention center began to run the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) program, which offered prenatal antiviral treatment and surrogacy.

Luckily, when Jiq delivered her second baby, she was offered PMTCT treatment by her local maternal health center. Her daughter is now three years old and still not showing any signs of the virus.

"My girl is healthy," Jiq said, reaching down to touch her belly before continuing, "but I still want a healthy son to carry on the family name."

HIV/AIDS was first found among IDU in Liangshan in 1995 but in 2014, sex was named the major transmission path, said Song Zhibin, vice director of the Liangshan HIV/AIDS prevention bureau.

Now almost 90 percent of townships have PLWHA.

"We are also seeing an increase of mother-to-child transmission cases every year," Song said, citing a lack of prevention awareness education as the main cause.

Poverty has also exacerbated the situation.

Jiq's household earns about 7,000 yuan (about 1,126.9 U.S. dollars) a year, which is by no means the lowest in the area. In 2007, more than 1.5 million people in Liangshan brought home less than 1,000 yuan a year, making it one of the poorest regions in Sichuan Province.

"IDU, low education, and underfunded medical services in this region can all be traced back to poverty. It feeds the epidemic," said Song.

After expanding the PMTCT project in Liangshan to cover more areas, the number of babies born with HIV dropped from 10.5 percent in 2008 to 5.5 percent in 2013.

At the same time, more programs to help residents out of poverty have been launched.

One project, headed by the China Red Ribbon Foundation, seeks to empower local women through the traditional craft of Yi embroidery.

The project combines poverty relief work with traditional culture protection, said Wang Ying, vice president of the general union of the prefecture.

"We have trained more than 6,000 women over the past two years, many were PLWHA," she added.

Jiq's main goal is to deliver a healthy son. To achieve this, the whole family are undergoing antiviral therapy.

"I want to live, because I can't imagine what would happen to my children if I died," she said. Endi