On February 7th, in Maputo, the V Panafrican training course of the DREAM program began. It is attended by medical doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians, biologists, chemists, computer programmers and coordinators, 130 people coming from 11 African countries.Participants come from Mozambique, of course, but also from Kenya, Congo, Guinea Bissau, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Cameroon, Angola and a large group has come from Malawi.

There is also a group of Italian doctors from the University of Pisa taking part in the course. They will be a support to the program as it starts in new Countries. But the course is particularly interesting also for other operators, who mean to replicate the DREAM model within their own structures. In fact the course is also attended by a group of Vincentian sisters, who will start the ARV therapy in their centres, and by the health teams of some of the major enterprises active in Mozambique, since they mean to make the AIDS therapy available to their employees.

The inauguration of the course was attended also by some authorities, like the representatives of the Health Ministry and the National Council to Combat HIV/AIDS, the representative of the Bishop of Maputo, a representative of the Mulheres para o DREAM Activist Association, who gave their greetings to the participants. The course will run until February 26th; the first part will be theoretical, then it will include a period of internship at the DREAM centres in Mozambique.

While the formation course for sanitary staff was starting, during the same week there was a course for thirty activists belonging to the Mulheres para o DREAM Association coming from Maputo and Beira. The objective of the course was to examine the nutritional aspects associated to the HIV infection. The activists actually support the therapy implemented by the DREAM centres with their home care activity that faces the nutritional aspects of the disease. Their task consists in teaching and controlling the nutrition of mothers on treatment and their children, in checking that milk and food for weaning are prepared properly, in readily reporting any clinical problems that may occur to the medical doctors.