When Juliet Nalumu, overjoyed at her first pregnancy, visited her local hospital in eastern Uganda for a check-up, it turned into one of the worst days of her life.
She found out she was HIV positive. "All the joy and happiness disappeared."
Lonely, and terrified of telling her husband of two years, the 26-year-old decided to keep it a secret.
"I was his third wife, and the youngest, so by going home and telling him I was HIV positive, both he and his other wives would believe I'd brought the infection into the family."
"They'd probably chase me out of the house. I depended on him entirely - he was the breadwinner. We would have had nothing to live on," Nalumu said while visiting London ahead of World Aids Day on December 1.
Nalumu's story is not unusual in eastern Uganda - and in many parts of Africa - where women are dependent on their husbands for survival, and where stigma against AIDS is common.
With only one month's supply of anti-retroviral drugs, and the hospital a two-hour bus ride from her village, she did not want to raise suspicions by returning for more medication.
"I became very sick. They had to carry me to the hospital. I had tuberculosis and I was very wasted," she said.
Even after giving birth while sick and very thin, she said nothing to her family.
A nurse told her to exclusively breastfeed her twins to protect them from the virus, but severely malnourished, she was unable to do so.
About 40 per cent of infections from mother to child happen when babies are fed a combination of breast mile and formula, which irritates the intestinal lining making children more susceptible.
One of her twins died at four months and her other daughter became sick at nine months but survived.
"This time I said for the sake of this innocent child I had to do my best. I did casual work for my neighbours, anything to raise money to get me back to the hospital."
An estimated 7.3 per cent of people in Uganda aged 15 to 49 years old have HIV. Globally nearly 37 million people are living with the virus.
Four years later Nalumu's fortunes changed when she got a job as a mentor with mothers2mothers, an international charity helping mothers with HIV.
"I now had a voice, a salary," she said.
She then told her family she had the virus and they were all tested, with her husband and one co-wife testing positive.
Nalumu was supported by her husband, but less so from some relatives who asked her to give them her money, saying she would soon die.
But with the help of medication and knowledge her health improved and she went on to have two children who are virus-free.
