Tereza
Tereza, from Malawi, is eight months pregnant. She doesn’t know how she contracted the HIV virus. She says that ignorance creates fear, and she wants to show others that you can be HIV-positive and still enjoy life.
Wang
Every day at 8.30am a gentleman in a suit comes to MSF's Xiangfan clinic, in China. He greets every patient warmly and pays close attention to what they have to say. He is Wang, our peer educator.
Victoria has been living with HIV for four years. When she started ARV treatment, the pills were too big for her to swallow. She has just finished primary school in Malawi and when she grows up, she wants to be a nurse.
Brisco
Brisco is 12 years old. He lives in a village in Malawi with his grandmother. His parents have died. Last year, Brisco did not go to school because he was very sick and had to stay in bed.
Charles
Charles was training to be a teacher in Nairobi, Kenya when he discovered that he had HIV. He lost his place at college because of his illness, but after two years of treatment he feels well and he knows that he can achieve whatever he wants.
Ann
Ann is only 13 years old, but already she has suffered the loss of her baby brother and her father. Ann lives with her mother, who is also HIV-positive, in Thailand.
Ton
Ton lives in Thailand. He has tuberculosis and HIV. He did not want to take antiretroviral medication for fear of the side-effects, but a dramatic course of treatment for an infection that caused blindness made him change his mind.
Boniface
Boniface lives in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. He thought that HIV was a disease for rich people. When he found out that he had the virus, he thought his life was over.
Jean and Esther
Papa Jean and Mama Esther met in a support group for HIV-positive patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although their families and friends objected, they decided to get married. They wanted to show that they could live a normal life.
Catherine
Catherine lives in Kenya. Even after she was diagnosed as HIV-positive, her husband refused to use a condom during sex. He said that condoms were for prostitutes, and then he abandoned her and their two children.
Gilbert & Millicent
Gilbert and Millicent live in Kenya with their six children, including a newborn baby. Baby Aaron does not drink his mother's breast milk, because of the risk that she will infect him with HIV.
Patricia
Patricia's husband died from an illness after the Rwandan genocide war. She believes that she contracted HIV from him, as he had had several wives.