19/08/2006

Arusha Pioneers Mother-to-Child HIV Prevention

Arusha is set to pioneer the country's prevention of HIV transmission from Mother to unborn child by 99 percent, following the establishment of a special HIV-Aids center and clinic at the Usa-River area of Arumeru district, a project which is being carried out by the charitable Community of Sant'Egidio.

The Community of Sant'Egidio in collaboration with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost Fathers are building a modern Molecular Biology Laboratory at the Usa River Dispensary in Arumeru district. It will be the first one in the country to be opened for public service.

Speaking during a ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone for the project at Usa River Dispensary last week, the community of Sant' Egidio, representative Dr. Michelangelo Bartolo said the lab will be a reference and prestigious center for the whole of Arusha region as the hemoglobin tests, biochemical tests, the CD-4 counts and the viral load check, will be carried out for patients.

The tests to be performed at Usa-River lab center will make it possible to monitor the therapy processes in a better way, according to Dr. Bartolo.

"In particular, the viral load will indicate the real health conditions of the patient, and is indispensable to treat and monitor the children" he explained.

Speaking at the function, the Arusha Regional Medical Officer, Dr. Naftal Ole King'ori hailed the Saint'Egidio community for setting up the modern Molecular Biology Laboratory at Usa-River.

"This will be very useful since its capacity is to detect viral at the very early stage particularly for the newly born baby something which is very much needed in the country" Dr. King'ori said, explaining that the available testing equipment in the country cannot detect the viral load for a child before 18 months.

Officiating at the function, the Arusha arch-diocese of Roman Catholic, Arch-Bishop Josaphat Lebulu underscored the need for such crucial project to be sustainable.

"We need to ensure that the project is sustainable even when the saint'Egidio ceases to support the centre so as we lay the foundation stone for this center, we should also put into consideration the need for its sustainability," the Arch-Bishop said.

The achievement of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in Africa has reached the 99 percent, due to the efforts by an Italian Community of Sant'Egidio through the Drug Resource Enhancement against Aids and Malnutrition (DREAM) project.

"Our program experience in Africa shows that the success of the prevention of the mother-to-child transmission, from a positive woman to her baby, reaches the 99 percent this means that we are rescuing 99 children out of 100" Dream country Director, Dr. Michelangelo Bartolo revealed.

According to Dr. Bartolo, the prevention has been possible in their areas of interventions in Africa continent by giving pregnant women the tri-therapy at the last months of their pregnancies.

"In this way the viral load decreases dramatically becoming undetectable, and the child born without HI Virus" Italian medical Doctor noted, explaining that more data on the success of his organization will be presented in Toronto, Canada, at the International scientific congress on Aids in the near future.

Project Dream is a global program aimed at combating the HIV-AIDS pandemic in Sub-Sahara Africa. It started in 2002 in Mozambique and has now grown spreading in six Africa countries in which there are 19 active centers.

"Up to now 25,000 patients have received direct assistance from Dream project, but here in Tanzania we are present in the two regions of Arusha and Iringa, " Dr. Bartolo said, adding that in the Usa-River centre in Arusha there are 125 patients, of whom 95 are under ARV therapy.

The Community of Sant'Egidio is fostering its programme of treatment and care of HIV/AIDS in Africa and is taking steps for its further development in Tanzania, under DREAM.

DREAM has the objective of incorporating prevention and therapy in a way that is deemed necessary to both save lives as well as maintain health well-being. It is a special programme for treating AIDS in Africa, having been launched in January 2002 by the Community of Sant'Egidio.

"Fighting AIDS in Africa means not only saving many lives - adults, women, young people, children - but also safeguarding the future of the entire continent by preventing the impoverishment of its human resources," Dr. Bartolo said.

The DREAM project is now present in Mozambique, Malawi, Kenya, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now for the first time in Tanzania.

The community of Sant'Egidio began in Rome in 1968 with a group of high school students who wanted to take the Gospel more seriously. Today it is a movement consisting of over 40,000 Christian lay-people in more than 60 countries throughout the world.