More mumps

We thought these week was the last week of the quarantine and the children can go and visit each other :) But when we came back on Monday two of our children popped up with mumps :(. The children are still under quarantine for the next 21 days again!

It seems as if a new baby arrives every week. On Thursday another little boy arrived - he is 5 months old and had been at the Hospital since his birth when his mother abandoned him.

When he arrived he was smiling, but once he was put into a bath, he started screaming. It seems that he had never been bathed before – the hospitals just wash the babies with a face cloth in their beds, and not too well it seems – he was rather grubby. He is also underweight – he only weighs 4.8kg at 5 months.

I’m afraid that the care of the children that are suspected of being HIV+ and are abandoned at the hospital at birth, are not properly looked after. We think the nursing staff reckons that, if they are HIV+, they are going to die anyway so why waste food on them or give them extra care. What frustrates us, is that he was left in the hospital for 5 months before anyone thought to get the Welfare to try and find a home for him.

We are going to test him for HIV and, if he is negative, he will be adopted – the Welfare already have parents lined up for him.



Update on mumps and chicken pox:

The quarantine has been partially lifted – the houses are all mixing again and we take them out for shopping but we’re holding off on sending them back to Sunday School and Bible group for another week because of the close proximity to the other children there.

Some good news!

We got the blood results for this little boy who came to us a month ago and he is HIV negative. He can now be put up for an adoption/foster care.


Quarantine Update

All our homes are still under quarantine – a selection of children from three of the homes have mumps – every few days another one pops out, so our quarantine could go on for some time since the incubation period is 21 days. We therefore have to wait 21 days from the latest incidence before ending the quarantine – this date keeps moving further and further!

Although the children in the baby house have been spared the mumps, we have chicken pox doing the rounds there. This is the fourth round of chicken pox we’ve had in Lambano over the last 2 years so all the older children have had their turn. However, because of their HIV status, our children could get it again, so we’re keeping the older children away from the baby house.

Our little baby is out of the hospital!

Our little baby is out of the hospital and doing much better. She has been diagnosed with Hypothyroidism, which causes many medical problems. This little girl is going to need lots of prayer because life is not going to be easy for her.


We had prepared a special outing for the children for Friday afternoon but, on the morning found out that four of our children from the MacAlpine home have mumps!

In order to protect the “public” we have to put all the children under quarantine. This was really disappointing for the children because they have been talking about this outing all week. If no more children develop mumps we should be able to go out next week. However if another case develops, the quarantine starts all over again!