'Don't tell anyone, your mother gave you HIV'

Two teenagers sip on strawberry milkshakes at Johannesburg's Southgate Mall.

She wears a brown sling-bag across her black Guess T-shirt, over skinny jeans and sandals.

Earphones dangle from the neck of his green Guess T-shirt, covering an 18-year-old body honed by chest-pressing 10kg weights.

Few people know that the two were born HIV-positive.

"It's not nice. I have to lie to my friends because they don't know my status. All my friends don't know; only my grandmother and my aunt," says Nelly, also 18.

She finished school last year and is looking for a bursary to study social work through Unisa.

Thabang's mates are becoming suspicious, having noticed his regular clinic visits. They say: "Every Thursday, every three months, you go to the doctor."

It worries him.

"They want to know what is wrong. I tell them I'm having flu."

Both Nelly and Thabang were born in 1993 to HIV-positive mothers at a time when there were no programmes for the prevention of mother-to-child infection.

Nelly was 12 years old when she began taking medication - she did not know why. One morning, as she prepared for school, her grandmother told her that she was HIV-positive: "This is the secret of your life; don't tell anybody," the grandmother said.

That day she could not concentrate in class.

"Where did I get this? How did it get into my body?" she thought. Maybe she had been raped in her sleep.

"When I got home I asked my grandmother where I got this and she said it was from my mother."

Life changed overnight.

"I was a person who liked to go out with friends, but now I don't do sleep-overs," she said.

At 7am and 7pm every day, Nelly has to take her antiretrovirals. She has to lie to her friends about why she has to be home by 7pm to take her medication.

"We're having girl's gossips and chats, but my grandmother has to call me," she said.

The worst part is that she doesn't know how to tell her 21-year-old boyfriend.

"He doesn't know about my status. I feel guilty sometimes. He asks me [if we can have sex] but I always say I'm not ready," she says.

Thabang's face brightens as he speaks of his 17-year-old girlfriend, who is "such a nice lady".

They have been dating for over a year and "just chill in the streets or at the park". But there is one thing they don't discuss.

"We don't talk about HIV. I haven't disclosed it to her and I don't know how she feels about HIV."

Dating is easier for him than for Nelly because men initiate sex, he said.

"I tell her I'm not ready, we are still at school and I'm not ready to be a father because there's a possibility that the condom will burst."

For Nelly, keeping the secret is "very difficult".

"We can't just tell anybody our status," she said.

Thabang has overheard neighbours saying: "Don't worry, she will die soon", while gossiping about someone who is HIV-positive.

Neither is ready to deal with the stigma.

"They'll say I'm a bitch; I was sleeping around. They won't understand I got it from my mother."

Nelly has battled to forgive her mother, who died when she was 10.

"All these years, I was holding grudges. Why didn't they protect me? My younger sister is negative. I was feeling like I could kill myself because maybe my mother didn't like me. I was wishing my mother could come back so I could kill her," she said.

But Nelly forgave her mother earlier this year. She wrote her a letter.

"I told her I have many questions. I still want to know how she got the virus. But I have forgiven her. That letter has calmed my soul. I feel free now that I have forgiven her."

Now, when Nelly looks at herself in the mirror, she sees a "healthy girl with a nice body".

"Sometimes I think this virus is not there in my body, that it's under my feet and I'm going on top of it. I see myself with a good weight, with a good height and everything is fine."

PRESSURE ON CLINICS

Nataly Woollett, the technical head of counselling and prevention at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, warned that there will be a six-fold increase in the number of HIV-positive teenagers who will move from paediatric clinics to adult clinics for treatment.

"Healthcare systems need to get jacked for this population because the numbers are huge," she said.

Woollett said nurses at adult clinics sometimes "judge the teenagers who want to have sex".

The main problem is that the teenagers who have passed puberty think that their sexuality is "something to be scared of", said Woollett.

"They are so frightened of infecting someone else," she said.

• All names have been changed