Congo-Kinshasa: Solidarity Against Aids
By, UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, October 10, 2006
The NGO ACS/Amocongo provides care and support to thousands of people living with HIV.
After losing her sister to HIV/AIDS two years ago, Kimya, an HIV-positive mother of four, felt she had no choice but to take in her sister's children, saying it was "the obvious thing to do - it is solidarity".
"At first the two children were placed elsewhere [with other family members], but it didn't work out," she said in her single-roomed shack in Lubumbashi, capital of the southeastern province of Katanga in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Despite her poor health and bleak financial position, Kimya, 55, (not her real name) decided that the best place for her nieces was with her. "I was really obliged to do this. My family had abandoned us - they don't even visit us any more," she said as she cradled her crying three-year-old on her lap.
Kimya discovered she was HIV positive in 2002, just after her husband died. "My husband's family came to see me to suggest that I be tested for HIV. I was tested and the result was positive," she said. "I was very unhappy - I had heard people talking about AIDS at the church and I thought I was going to die immediately."
Community Action Association Against AIDS/A Better Future for Orphans (ACS/Amocongo), a local nongovernmental organisation (NGO) founded in 1993, runs voluntary testing centres in nine of the country's 11 provinces, and provides schooling, feeding and psychological counselling to about 8,000 AIDS orphans. Kimya was tested at a centre near her home.
In 1997 ACS/Amocongo decided to expand its assistance to include the families and caregivers of AIDS orphans, on condition that the orphans were not abandoned.
"We want to prioritise African solidarity by telling these enlarged families to give these children affection and a roof over their heads, and we will do the rest," said Dr Jo Bakualufu Ntumba, in charge of follow-up and evaluation in ACS/Amocongo programmes in Kinshasa, the DRC capital.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that after almost ten years of conflict, the DRC has 120,000 HIV-positive children, and 800,000 have lost one or both parents to the pandemic.
Last year, in an initiative financed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, ACS/Amocongo started providing free antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to 2,100 people living with HIV/AIDS. The NGO has a total of 6,600 HIV-positive people on its books in 20 treatment centres throughout the country.
Kimya is one of the patients whose health has improved since she started treatment, but she is worried about her youngest child, who has become HIV positive - the only one of the six she looks after to be infected. ACS/Amocongo has been providing antibiotics to limit opportunistic infections.
Paediatric ARVs are not available in Lubumbashi but, with the help of the Global Fund, ACS/Amocongo is hoping to receive the first batch before the end of the year.
According to Dr Lucien Kalenga, who heads the programme in Katanga Province, 300 of the 1,500 orphans ACS/Amocongo looks after in the province would be eligible for this life-prolonging treatment. "It is difficult to give ARVs to the mother and not to the child," he said.
While they wait, Kimya's priority is to find a way to feed her family. "They are sad because they are hungry. They haven't eaten today," she said wearily.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200610110007.html
The NGO ACS/Amocongo provides care and support to thousands of people living with HIV.
After losing her sister to HIV/AIDS two years ago, Kimya, an HIV-positive mother of four, felt she had no choice but to take in her sister's children, saying it was "the obvious thing to do - it is solidarity".
"At first the two children were placed elsewhere [with other family members], but it didn't work out," she said in her single-roomed shack in Lubumbashi, capital of the southeastern province of Katanga in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Despite her poor health and bleak financial position, Kimya, 55, (not her real name) decided that the best place for her nieces was with her. "I was really obliged to do this. My family had abandoned us - they don't even visit us any more," she said as she cradled her crying three-year-old on her lap.
Kimya discovered she was HIV positive in 2002, just after her husband died. "My husband's family came to see me to suggest that I be tested for HIV. I was tested and the result was positive," she said. "I was very unhappy - I had heard people talking about AIDS at the church and I thought I was going to die immediately."
Community Action Association Against AIDS/A Better Future for Orphans (ACS/Amocongo), a local nongovernmental organisation (NGO) founded in 1993, runs voluntary testing centres in nine of the country's 11 provinces, and provides schooling, feeding and psychological counselling to about 8,000 AIDS orphans. Kimya was tested at a centre near her home.
In 1997 ACS/Amocongo decided to expand its assistance to include the families and caregivers of AIDS orphans, on condition that the orphans were not abandoned.
"We want to prioritise African solidarity by telling these enlarged families to give these children affection and a roof over their heads, and we will do the rest," said Dr Jo Bakualufu Ntumba, in charge of follow-up and evaluation in ACS/Amocongo programmes in Kinshasa, the DRC capital.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that after almost ten years of conflict, the DRC has 120,000 HIV-positive children, and 800,000 have lost one or both parents to the pandemic.
Last year, in an initiative financed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, ACS/Amocongo started providing free antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to 2,100 people living with HIV/AIDS. The NGO has a total of 6,600 HIV-positive people on its books in 20 treatment centres throughout the country.
Kimya is one of the patients whose health has improved since she started treatment, but she is worried about her youngest child, who has become HIV positive - the only one of the six she looks after to be infected. ACS/Amocongo has been providing antibiotics to limit opportunistic infections.
Paediatric ARVs are not available in Lubumbashi but, with the help of the Global Fund, ACS/Amocongo is hoping to receive the first batch before the end of the year.
According to Dr Lucien Kalenga, who heads the programme in Katanga Province, 300 of the 1,500 orphans ACS/Amocongo looks after in the province would be eligible for this life-prolonging treatment. "It is difficult to give ARVs to the mother and not to the child," he said.
While they wait, Kimya's priority is to find a way to feed her family. "They are sad because they are hungry. They haven't eaten today," she said wearily.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200610110007.html
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 3:07 pm
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