Stella is four, and lives on HIV drugs. Next week, the EU may cut her supply.
Clinging to life: Rebecca Mbabazi and her daughter Stella are HIV positive and rely on the cheap, generic versions of Western drugs distributed in western Uganda by staff from Bwindi Hospital
MORE PICTURESStella's life is in the balance. She was born, four years ago, HIV-positive. Her mother, Rebecca Mbabazi, 23, only discovered – like so many mothers in Uganda – that she had the virus when she was already pregnant.
Mother and daughter live in the verdant hills on the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the remote west of the country. It is famed for mountain gorillas but during the 1990s became infamous for lethally high rates of HIV/Aids infections.
Like most little girls, Stella doesn't much like pills – she pulls a comic face when they are mentioned – but she takes them anyway, twice a day. They save her life. But for how long? If the European Union has its way, the supply of cheap drugs on which Stella depends could be cut off.
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