Juma

Juma is an 8 year old boy I’ve been caring for in the hospital for the past 3 weeks. He was initially admitted to the hospital for malnutrition and a persistent cough. Because he was brought in by a care-taker (both his parents had died, and the care-taker was unaware of the causes), we tested him for HIV. He was positive. We then tested his younger brother, who was positive too.


Juma quickly became a highlight of my morning rounds at the hospital. His tan colored blazer made him look very grown up, and each day, he would sit extremely upright in anticipation of our examinations of him.


Sadly, there were many mornings when Juma would be too tired to sit up in bed for us to examine him. But on this particular day, he had enough energy and was overjoyed to get his picture taken with his brother--which made my day.


A devastating impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is the number of children orphaned because of it. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, there are about 15 million such children worldwide, and 12 million of them are in sub-Saharan African.


It is predicted the number of African children orphaned will exceed 18 million in the near future. Most of these children, like Juma, are bound for poverty, disease and early death.