{"id":76479,"date":"2026-02-24T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T01:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/24\/drugs-denial-and-stigma-babies-and-children-fiji-hiv-epidemic"},"modified":"2026-02-24T10:00:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T01:00:52","slug":"drugs-denial-and-stigma-the-babies-and-children-swept-up-in-fijis-hiv-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76479","title":{"rendered":"Drugs, denial and stigma: the babies and children swept up in Fiji\u2019s HIV nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vulnerable young people, partners of drug users and victims of sexual violence also among those afflicted in world\u2019s fastest growing HIV epidemic <\/p>\n<p>The night her baby\u2019s heart stopped, Clare* blamed herself. Had she taken her out in the cold too much? Had she damaged her lungs by drinking iced water when she was pregnant? She fixated on Andi\u2019s tiny chest, willing it to suck in air, rushing her to hospital in Fiji for the second time in as many days.<\/p>\n<p>All through the early hours Andi* clung to life. Doctors performed CPR several times, puncturing the month-old baby\u2019s chest to insert a drain, removing fluid from around her lungs. \u201cShe was really, really sick and they didn\u2019t know what was going on \u2026 she was getting weaker and weaker,\u201d Clare says. She sat by her daughter\u2019s bedside. She prayed.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/24\/drugs-denial-and-stigma-babies-and-children-fiji-hiv-epidemic\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vulnerable young people, partners of drug users and victims of sexual violence also among those afflicted in world\u2019s fastest growing HIV epidemic The night her baby\u2019s heart stopped, Clare* blamed herself. Had she taken her out in the cold too much? Had&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[791,41,372,436,874,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aids-and-hiv","category-asia-pacific","category-drugs","category-fiji","category-pacific-islands","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76480,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76479\/revisions\/76480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}