One married couple from the north-eastern Argentine province of Santa Fe made the heartwarming decision to adopt an HIV-positive baby after she had been rejected by multiple other families.
Damian Pighin and Ariel Vijarra were delighted to expand their family.
Family is such an essential part of our lives, and while families may argue from time to time, they’re always there for one another in the end. Hence why one couple had been looking to expand their family for years, but sadly to no avail.
Thankfully, however, back in 2014, the pair received a call about a young baby who was looking for a home — baby Olivia.
At the time, baby Olivia was not in great health.
Olivia was only 28 days old, underweight, and was HIV positive. Pighin, 42, and Vijarra, 39, were also informed that the young baby had been rejected by no less than 10 families in her quest for a home!
The couple spared no time in welcoming the adorable baby into their family.
Vijarra explained the moment that they met young Olivia for the first time:
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“As soon as I saw her, I felt that she was part of my life. The connection was immediate. We held her in our arms, gave her the bottle and she looked at us with her eyes open without crying,” Vijarra told local news .
Pighin and Vijarra have been overjoyed with life with Olivia
Pighin and Vijarra were the first gay couple to be married in the north-eastern Argentine province of Santa Fe, and for the couple to finally be able to expand their family is truly wonderful.
Over time, Olivia responded exceptionally well to her new surroundings, gaining weight, and even receiving some fantastic news.
Baby Olivia’s HV treatment went better than could have been expected!
Olivia responded amazingly to the HIV treatment, which ultimately resulted in the amazing news that the HIV virus was no longer detectable in little Olivia!
This means that Olivia will be able to enjoy her life without the virus affecting her immune system!
While there is no definitive cure for HIV as yet, there is hope.
In instances such as Olivia’s case, for example, the amount of the virus in a person’s body is reduced until they are no longer infectious. Medical News Today, describes this as such:
“Although there is no cure for HIV, medical treatment is available that significantly reduces the amount of the virus in the body to the point where it may become undetectable in the blood.
“The amount of virus in a person’s body is known as the viral load. An undetectable viral load means that the person with HIV is not infectious and that the virus is not able to damage their immune system.”
Since adopting Olivia, Pighin and Vijarra’s family has grown again!
When a woman heard about Pighin and Vijarra’s amazing act of kindness, she reached out to them to see if they would adopt another child. The pair agreed, happy to enlarge their loving family even more!
Victoria and Olivia are of very similar ages. Hopefully, they will get along as well as all siblings famously do!
The fight against HIV has been long and hard.
With success stories like Olivia’s becoming ever so slightly more common, the future of the fight against HIV is hopefully looking a little better.
Three people — including one man in China, one patient known as “Düsseldorf patient”, and another patient known as the “Berlin patient” — have been attributed as massive success stories in the fight against HIV, according to an article in the Daily Mail .
The method by which one of these patients was dubbed potentially “virus free” was following transplant surgeries.
The so-called “Berlin patient” was undergoing treatment for Leukaemia, according to The New Scientist . The treatment involved, “killing nearly all his immune cells with radiotherapy or drugs, and then replacing them with cells from a donor. This donor was naturally resistant to HIV, thanks to a rare but natural mutation in a gene called CCR5.”
However, the treatment is apparently too dangerous to be performed widely as a treatment for HIV as yet.
Regardless, this is wonderful news for baby Olivia and her new family.
Damian Pighin and Ariel Vijarra will doubtless be wonderful, loving parents to their new children, and this story just goes to show that while there may seem to be nothing but hatred and anger out in the world at the moment, there are still some good people trying to make this world a better place.
h/t: LadBible & Daily Mail
