Ask the Doctor: How did my baby get infected with HIV?

During antenatal care and taking drugs, I was tested for HIV and the results were negative. However, three years after delivery, my child tested HIV positive. Is the hospital responsible for infecting my child with HIV? Hanifa

Dear Hanifa,

HIV can be transmitted by sexual contact, and mother-to-child transmission (during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding) but not through casual contact between a mother and child. 

Using unsterilised injection needles or unsterilised delivery equipment much as may risk hospital transmission of HIV, is rigorously avoided through using unused needles and sterilised equipment.

Usually, doctors ask mothers attending antenatal care to come along with their husbands for HIV checks together with their pregnant wives. Then, if the husbands have HIV infection but their wives do not, they are advised and taught how to use condoms to avoid transmitting the virus to the wives, especially during pregnancy when mothers are most vulnerable to infection and can more easily pass it on to their unborn babies. 

If the mothers are positive and the husbands negative, this also helps protect the husband from infection. Both the husband and wife are also advised to avoid getting HIV infection if both do not have it.

If you were found negative during antenatal care, and your husband was not checked yet he was infected or got infected later, he may have then transmitted the infection to you. Also, you may yourself have had extramarital affairs after being found negative, hence getting infected afterwards during pregnancy and then infecting the baby. 

Before you complain about the likelihood of the hospital having infected your baby, take HIV tests yourself to find out whether the infection could have come from you to the baby during pregnancy, delivery or breastfeeding. Also, have your caregivers at home checked because sometimes, these may breastfeed your baby, hence infecting it.

Caregivers also require HIV tests before being employed to reduce the likelihood of them spreading HIV infection to your young ones through abusing them or having sexual activity with your husband.

I do not know what you mean by taking drugs during antenatal care. Do you mean drugs for HIV or the ones given during antenatal care? Drugs for HIV or antenatal care are unlikely to make a woman who is pregnant negative for HIV if she has had the infection before.

Does fasting make gout worse?

I have a disease called gout but I am a Muslim who is required to fast. Is fasting as bad as eating meat? Aiza

Dear Aiza,

Gout occurs when one or many joints get severe attacks of pain, swelling and redness related to high uric acid levels in the body. Too much uric acid builds up in joints, inflaming them, which in the end leads to a gout attack.

Uric acid is released when substances called purines, which are mainly produced inside the body, or released when we eat certain types of food including organ meat, red meat and seafood are broken down by the body.

A low purine diet and drinking lots of fluids, especially water, can be useful in preventing gout attacks.

People who are obese are among others who risk getting gout so fasting, which reduces obesity, may be useful. Unfortunately, fasting not only leads to rapid weight loss which increases the formation of uric acid, but it also decreases the loss of uric acid through the kidneys, hence also risking gout.

It is, therefore, advised that one who has gout much as they may benefit from slow weight loss, refrains from fasting, but eats a nutritious diet while limiting foods high in purines apart from avoiding alcohol intake.