Ruth Nkuya’s small hands show signs of worry at the hem of her dress as she softly tells her story: when her husband wanted to have a second child, Ruth insisted on being tested for HIV first. Ruth, who lives in Malawi, discovered that she was HIV-positive when her only daughter was five years old in 1996. Her husband was two weeks from starting antiretroviral treatment (ART) when he died in 1993. Now a secretary for the National Association for People Living with AIDS, Ruth looks out at the flame trees in Lilongwe’s City Centre and her face breaks into a smile as she thinks of the ART she receives through Lighthouse Trust, an organization supported by the U.S. Government. “Since I started antiretroviral treatment, my CD4 count has gone from 308 to 900. I am able to work now and take care of my daughter,” she says.
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