In St. Petersburg, a girl with HIV infection died. Her parents were sure that there was no such disease

On August 30, it became known that a 10-year-old girl with HIV died in St. Petersburg. The girl’s adoptive father, an Orthodox priest and HIV-discident, refused to treat her for religious reasons. Doctors, activists and court tried to save the girl, but they could not convince the family. Medusa tells the main thing about this story.

The girl was taken from the orphanage of the Orthodox family several years ago (the guardianship authorities do not call the exact date). In the apparatus of the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child in St. Petersburg, they explained that Christina (the name changed) several years ago adopted a deeply religious Orthodox family. According to Fontanka, the Orthodox priest became the adoptive father of Christina. When making guardianship, the family was warned that Christina was born with a diagnosis of HIV , but this did not stop anyone - the family had already raised several adoptive children with different diagnoses. Over the next years (how many time Christina spent in the foster family, the guardianship authorities also do not specify) the inspectors have never had complaints about the family and how they raise the adoptive daughter. A source of Medusa, well acquainted with the situation, said that Christine was 10 years old in 2017.

The family refused to treat the girl and other children with generally accepted methods due to religious views. According to Rosbalt, the spouses believed that “more harm than the benefits” from modern medicine, and refused therapy, supposedly following the position of the Russian Orthodox Church in this matter. They were also convinced that AIDS is a “fiction of pharmacological companies” that they want to earn on drugs. As a result of refusal of treatment, Christina's disease progressed. After the next planned examination, the doctors of the AIDS center, where the girl was registered, said Christina’s critical condition. In response to the requests of doctors, the family took the child to the clinic in Germany, where they try to heal HIV alternative methods and give patients only dietary supplements - biologically active additives.

In 2016, the girl was still hospitalized by court decision. Faced with parents' refusals, the employees of the St. Petersburg Center for AIDS contacted the guardianship authorities, the prosecutor's office and the apparatus of the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child in St. Petersburg. The court sided with the doctors and ordered his parents to hospitalize the child, to ensure regular examination and therapy prescribed by doctors. Even after such a decision, the parents did not give Christine the medicine, agreeing to therapy only in words. “The guardianship authorities assured the doctors that everyone in the family was treating well and the child, and the bailiffs shook their hands, not understanding how they could force their parents to give the child pills,” said the medical publication Dr. Peter.

The child was hospitalized only after the doctor of the private clinic, to which the girl was brought to the appointment, called an ambulance. After that, Christina spent more than four months in the Children's City Hospital of St. Petersburg. The girl was in intensive care, but all this time the foster family continued to try to take her from the hospital-according to Interfax, in the early summer of 2017 they even wanted to steal a girl from the hospital to go to the sea with her. As a result, the girl was returned to the family, but not for long: the family stopped treatment, and Christina was again hospitalized.

On August 27, 2017, the girl died. In the apparatus of the children's ombudsman of St. Petersburg, Svetlana Agapitova reported that she began to treat the girl too late, she had practically no chance of recovery. The death of the girl was confirmed by the chief freelance specialist on the problems of diagnosis and treatment of HIV infection of the Ministry of Health of Russia Evgeny Voronin, calling the incident "another death on the conscience of AIDS-dissidents."

Reception parents may face criminal liability for the death of the child. HIV-dissidents are often trying to hold responsibility for refusing to treat their children. One of the latest cases occurred in Tyumen-there is a 34-year-old local resident who denies the existence of HIV,refused the treatment of her three-year-old daughter, and in April 2017 the girl died. The woman was accused of causing death by negligence (part one of Article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Her husband and father of the child were recognized as victims. On July 31, the court closed the case for the reconciliation of the parties, but the prosecutor’s office appealed to the court decision.

Officially, the Russian Orthodox Church does not deny HIV. According to the concept of “the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS and working with people living with HIV/AIDS,” HIV “is one of the most serious threats to the CIS countries”. There is no calls and calls for the rejection of therapy. At the same time, the video in which the head of the Moscow Patriarchate Commission on the protection of the family Dmitry Smirnov said that no HIV actually was popular among HIV-dissidents. “AIDS does not arise from a fictional virus, but from four causes - stress, depression, destruction by vaccinations of human immunity and external intoxication,” Smirnov said. “The church refers to this topic soberly. We deny “AIDS-dissidentiality”, ” said Archpriest Pletnev, head of the HIV-infected people of the St. Petersburg diocese, on August 30.

The medical director of the Public Organization "Speedes Center" Elena Orlova-Morozova said "Medusa" that a refusal for religious reasons is rarely found among HIV-dissidents, much more often they believe in the conspiracy of pharmacological companies and the destructiveness of the treatment itself.

Activists who are conducting on VKontakte group “HIV/AIDS Dissentes and their children” (the group monitors the situation with HIV-dissidents) argue that for several years, 60 people died due to refusal to treat HIV. 13 of them - aged several months to ten years.

Pavel Merzlikin