When Cho's husband died at his parent's home, shortly after that, his family told her that he had passed away due to AIDS and suggested her to get tested for the same. Cho still remember going to a clinic in heat for getting a blood test done, and breathed a sigh of relief when the test came out negative.

But soon, she began losing weight and started falling sick more often. The former market stallholder has gone for another HIV test in September and it came out positive. While wiping her tears from cheeks, the 43-year-old said that the moment she discovered that she had HIV, she felt very sad.

She got admitted into a clinic and hospice for HIV patients founded by a member of parliament from the National League for Democracy (NLD) within two days of diagnosis. The lady’s family, living in the impoverished Hlaing Thar Yar township in Myanmar's main city Yangon, did not want to take her to home with them.

The transmission of virus can’t happen by day-to-day contact, but her family was afraid that she would infect the child of her younger sister. Cho, whose name has been changed for protecting her real identity, said that her family supported her financially, but wanted her to never come home.

While speaking to Myanmar Now, she said, “My 21-year-old daughter has not come to visit me once since I arrived here, but at least she speaks to me on the phone, so it's not bad”. The hospice has roughly 300 patients, with many having same stories of rejection.