The life time left for the 22-years old boy without this operation was only one month.  Protection means for doctors, who were looking after the patient, were procured by Elena Franchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation.

22-years old guy has already left the Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery, now he is under supervision of doctors from HIV/AIDS department of Institute of epidemiology and infectious diseases. The patient’s condition is rather good.

-Three valves were involved, and we replaced them,- Aleksey Krikunov, chief of surgeon department of infective endocarditis treatment of Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery named after N. M. Amosov of AMS of Ukraine, says. – Such operations are not unique in our country. But we were first who operated HIV-positive patient with such diagnosis. The operation has lasted for about nine hours. 30 doctors have taken care of him. Not only successful operation was important for us but protection of medical personnel, as well.

Elena Franchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation procured for the operation sterile medical outfits, sheets, surgeon outfits, eye shields, facial masks and necessary sterilizers, and covered the costs of temperature gages. Foundation has helped parents to cover the cost of high-priced analysis.

- HIV-positive people often have infective endocarditis,- Svetlana Antonyak, chief of HIV/AIDS department of Institute of epidemiology and infectious diseases named after L. V.Gromachevsky of AMS of Ukraine, says. -Without treatment these patients die from heart attacks, heart failure. It’s important for us, that doctors have broken “taboos” and provided qualified aid to HIV-infected. By legislation, doctors have no rights to refuse such patients in treatment, but on practice…. Recently, 16-years old boy, infected during transfusion, has died. He came into a hospital complaining to the abdominal pains. There wasn’t done any instrumental examination. It comes out, that if the person doesn’t know about HIV-status, there is no problem with treatment. Our colleagues from Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery are great. They have done the operation and have shown to all medical society that there is no need to be afraid of HIV-positive patients. You can not get HIV taking care of HIV-positive. The risk of being infected during the operation is very small – one tenth of the percent. And after proper prophylaxis it is tends to zero. To be honest, such prophylaxis has to be done in any case, because a lot of people find out about their HIV status when they get to the hospital.