The Owens Family House: Preventing HIV in Newborns (as of May, 2005)
The
Owens Family House opened in October 2004. This home is a "guest house"
for HIV positive women who come
from the countryside to deliver at Calmette
Hospital in Phnom Penh so that they and their infants can be in a program to receive
the drug niviripine, which cuts HIV transmission to their newborns from about
25% to 2-5%; The woman and children stay at the "guest home" as they
get close to term, and also afterwards for about 6 weeks, so that they can learn
clean bottle feeding [ as HIV women cannot breast feed], and other parenting skills.
The home is managed by a 62 year old skilled nurse, who also is responsible for
long term follow up. The home was named in honor of a Bob Owens and Martha Ives
Owens and their two daughters who died in the Lockerbie disaster; their relatives,including
little Samnang Johnson Ives donated the funds for rehabbing the home, and for
the full first year's program. TSF will continue to monitor the project on a 3
monthly basis, as it does all its programs.