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07/24/2002
Machava (Mozambique)
Hope starts again with antiretroviral treatment
Everyone calls it with familiarity �the little house�. In fact it is a specialized center for AIDS treatment with antiretroviral medicines; it was realized and managed by the Community and represents hope for hundreds of people affected by AIDS.
 With over one hundred patients undergoing treatment and the prospect of taking on more AIDS patients very soon, the activity of the center for home assistance of Machava, in Matola (Mozambique) has intensified. Matola is the heavily populated city of small stone houses and "canisso" (reeds) huts on the outskirts of Maputo.
Every morning we leave from the center of Maputo to reach Machava. We drive along the street that leads outside the city, a long asphalt �tongue� that runs parallel to a channel that is also an open sewer and from where we can see the poor houses of the outskirts of the capital, an agglomerate of huts and shacks that reach Matola.
Our "little house", as we call the one floor building we have completely renovated, is becoming a point of reference for many HIV positive and sick people who do not know to whom they can turn to; in a country where, notwithstanding the HIV virus has infected more than 13% of the population, treatment has just begun.
In spite of its very familiar name, "the little house" is a highly specialized center for the prevention and treatment of AIDS according to innovative protocols. Actually not only is it one of the very few places � maybe the only one � in Mozambique and in Africa where the antiretroviral therapy is given for free, but also, though it was launched to coordinate home assistance, it has become the center of a series of activities that constitute all together our program to combat AIDS.
The center coordinates various activities: home visits to patients in order to verify the course of therapy, nutritional support in order to solicit a proper response to treatment, day hospital with tests done in our laboratory of molecular biology in Maputo and a lot of friendship.
Our service in the center of Machava is all of this. We have also started caring about some inmates in the high security prison (cadeia) that is in front of our little house. We do not forget our sick friends in the hospitals of Maputo who receive support, medicines, daily visits, and affection.
 Since we stated the antiretroviral therapy three months ago, we have seen that once patients overcome the first thirty days of treatment, they start to feel better, to gain strength, and to live again. In these last weeks the number of people who agree to have the HIV test has been increasing; to test positive is not a condemnation without appeal anymore, now that a concrete perspective of cure exists. Rather now people seek us out and many people come spontaneously to ask for help.
Last Tuesday a fainting, almost dying woman knocked at the door of the center. She had walked a few miles from her home to our "little house", the trip of salvation.
Adelina is only 34 years old. We gave her emergency aid and then we took her to the central hospital of Maputo. The following day, when we went to see her in the hospital, she was surprised and grateful. She was so even more so when we ensured her that she would be put on the treatment protocol.
A new hope is rising in the houses of Machava, Infulene, Matola, and in those at the outskirts of Maputo. These are huge agglomerates of stone shacks and "canisso" huts scattered in a labyrinth of unpaved lanes, with no addresses that the recent flood has upset and turned in to deep craters.
 From the center of Machava, every day, our "Sport Utility Vehicle" leaves and they go in to this labyrinth looking for the houses of the patients. Also the visit at Onoria�s house (link) has become a tradition. This young woman from Infulene had almost lost her beautiful smile because of the illness. We go there every day to treat the bedsores that forced being in bed had caused. Now the wounds are healing. Onoria has started to walk again, also thanks to the physiotherapy that she can receive at the "little house." That beautiful smile has come back on her face and conquered everybody.
Stefano
Capparucci
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