Test tube babies offer hope to HIV-discordant couples
(sz) After six years of marriage, Reema and Nagesh wanted a child. Only, their wish isn’t as simple as it sounds. Nagesh is HIV-positive and didn’t want Reema to get infected ever.
The couple, who only want to be identified as residents of a big southern city, began visiting doctors and, of course, countless websites. They soon found an answer - assisted reproductive techniques (ART) better known as infertility treatment. “I found out after an intensive Google search that we could have a healthy baby using an ART procedure called ICSI,” reveals Nagesh.
After some infertility experts refused to take up their case, they flew down to Mumbai to meet Anjali and Aniruddha Malpani who had agreed on email to help them.
“Many people don’t know that it is possible and extremely safe for HIV-discordant couples (one person is HIV positive but the other is not) to have HIV-negative babies using ART,” says Anjali Malpani, who has helped four discordant couples conceive in the last one year.
Her husband, Aniruddha, points out that ART for HIV discordant couples is an established medical protocol. “Two medical journals, Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine , carried exhaustive studies highlighting this over five years back establishing a treatment protocol for HIV-discordant couples,” says Aniruddha. >more…
From: »The Times of India«