AIDSCAREWATCH Monitor

·       Quote of the month
Rich Stearns

From the Campaign Trail

Home-based care reduces HIV prevalence rate
By, Victoria Muringayi, Zimbabwe Independent (Harare), November 10, 2006

The National Aids Council (NAC) has attributed the decline in the Aids prevalence rate to various projects such as the home-based care system which deals with people living with the HIV/Aids virus. NAC board chairman, Reverend Murombedzi Kuchera, said the awareness campaigns being carried out by various stakeholders nationwide were helping reduce the prevalence rate. more...

Feature Story

Exclusive school for HIV/AIDS children in India
By, MediaCorp press, September 21, 2006

AIDS-infected children play in an orphanage for HIV-positive children run by an Indian NGO in Madras, November 2004. A non-profit organization has set up a school in India for children infected with HIV/AIDS and barred from other institutions, an official said.  more...

Spotlight

Mozambique: HIV/Aids carers to be taught ARV management  
By, UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, January 16, 2007

The Mozambican Red Cross will begin training hundreds of volunteer workers to manage antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the HIV/AIDS sufferers in their care. "This training is extremely important and will improve the work of our carers," Paula Macava, the Red Cross Mozambique coordinator of the HIV/AIDS programme, told IRIN. "We have now finalised an eight-module training package on antiretroviral therapy management, specifically designed for carers." more...

Unsung Heroine

Namibia: At home with a home-based caregiver
By, Tanja Bause, The Namibian,  September 22,  2006

Out of love for her community and the urge to help where she can, Adriana Garises (30) did a home-based care course with Catholic AIDS Action and the Namibian Red Cross in 2003. "I saw the huge need to care for affected and infected people at home level, as the hospitals cannot accommodate the masses of people anymore," she says. more...

ACW Alert

HIV/AIDS may orphan 25 mill children by 2010  
By, Mu Xuequan, China View, 2006

Lagos - No fewer than 25 million children worldwide may be orphaned by the HIV/AIDS scourge by 2010, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported on Wednesday. Dr. Austin Omoigberale, an official of the World Health Organization (WHO), was quoted as saying that "HIV/AIDS infection in children rose significantly in the last decade worldwide."  more...

Positively Alive

Grandfather of six thanks ARVs for saving his life
By, Jan de Groot, Sundaytimes, October 2006

The year is 1993. The occasion is my donating of blood to the Natal Blood Transfusion service. The result is that I am not allowed to give blood and that I must see the office. The outcome is that I am infected with the HIV virus. I am a white male, at the time 67 years old, a grandfather with six grandchildren, and I know very little, if anything, about HIV. more...

ACW Perspective

Malawi: Home based care eases pressure on public health sector
By, IRIN Africa PlusNews, August 5, 2006

Mzuzu - Faced with the devastating impact of an HIV/AIDS epidemic compounded by abject poverty, Malawians have eased the pressure on state hospitals by caring for chronically ill family and neighbors at home. A home based care (HBC) project in Northern Malawi has assembled 225 young volunteers in the region's nine districts to provide community based support to homes and guardians looking after people living with AIDS (PWAs). The aim is to ease their suffering and prolong their lives. more...

Quote of the Month

"I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation. I look at my parents and ask, where were they during the civil rights movement? I look at my grandparents and ask, what were they doing when the holocaust in Europe was occurring with regard to the Jews, and why didn't they speak up? And when we think of our great, great, great-grandparents, we think how could they have sat by and allowed slavery to exist? And I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?" (Rich Stearns, President of World Vision, US)