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| Inter Press News Agency |
19/03/2004 |
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HEALTH-AFRICA |
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Spokesman Mario Marazziti told reporters that the group had established 13 centres in Mozambique under the auspices of the Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition project (DREAM), where it treated and cared for people living with AIDS. Around 16.4 percent of Mozambique's estimated 20 million people have contracted HIV, according to the World Health Organisation. Of the 70,000 people in Africa who currently receive anti-retrovirals (ARVs), about 7,000 are reportedly under the care of Sant' Egidio. "For us, people are never simple �emergencies'. We look at them as bodies to be clothed, sores to treat, mouths to feed," said Marazziti. With a small annual budget of five million dollars, DREAM organisers are hoping that the World Bank will come on board as a partner in the project. "Therapy is the only way to avoid (having) the entire struggle against AIDS in the southern areas of the world fail, and much of Africa, today and tomorrow, disappear," said Marazziti. Nearly 30 million of the 42 million people infected with HIV worldwide are in Africa, according to the latest statistics from the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Sant' Egidio is planning to extend its services to Malawi, Angola, the Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, South Africa and Swaziland. Marazziti says ARV therapy has ensured that 97 percent of children born to mothers receiving treatment from DREAM are HIV-negative. A video presentation shown to reporters on Tuesday (Mar. 16) also told of how a Mozambican, Isaias Joan Joao, had benefited from the ARVs dispensed by DREAM. Although his bones were protruding from his lanky structure when he first came to Sant' Egidio, Joao knew little about AIDS. And, his family had all but given up on him. "I lost a lot of weight. I couldn't sit. I couldn't walk. I needed support even for simple activities like eating and bathing," he recalls. "I was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with AIDS." That was in 2002. By last year he had regained his weight. "My neighbours, who had known and seen my condition, don't recognise me anymore. They think I am dead," says Joao, smiling. "Indeed, I was dead, but now I have resurrected," the 31-year-old adds. "At the centre, they feed us, bathe us, treat us and follow up the cases of those who are at home." "The most interesting thing is I didn't pay a cent. But someone paid my bill. I don't know who." In February, experts and medical doctors from Sant' Egidio presented the results of the DREAM project at a conference on viruses and opportunistic infections in San Francisco. More than 3,000 scientists attended the meeting, considered the most prestigious annual scientific event on HIV/AIDS in the world. Marazziti rejects the argument that economic and social constraints often make it impossible for Africans to maintain ARV therapy. "If you provide the proper environment for care and treatment, nothing is really impossible." "Testing without treatment and care will amount to a death sentence for a person with AIDS," he adds. "But if they know that you treat them and look after them, they will not refuse to have themselves tested. In fact, they know that knowing their status will not amount to a death sentence," he says. Sant' Egidio, which works with local health authorities in Mozambique, puts the cost of full ARV treatment at about 800 dollars per year. "This is still a lot of money. But it is nothing compared to the cost of war materials and cosmetics," observes Marazziti. More than 350 million people in Africa, over half the continent's population, live on less than a dollar a day, according to the World Bank. Michael Drysdale of AIDSLINK, a Johannesburg-based non-governmental organisation, said ARVs should be distributed free to the poor. "We also have to look at the issue of nutrition which is crucial in managing the conditions of people with HIV/AIDS," he said.
Moyiga Nduru
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