1.6 million
people in Tanzania are HIV positive – almost six percent of the population. But
the country is managing to contain the disease with the help of drug therapy
and investment in the health service.
Eighty four
thousand people in Tanzania still die each year from AIDS-related diseases, but
the country has nonetheless made enormous progress in combating the pandemic,
according to Christoph Benn from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Malaria, and
Tuberculosis. Twenty years ago, funerals of AIDS sufferers were an everyday
occurrence,” recalled Benn, who himself
was the head of a hospital in Tanzania at the time. “Young people were dying;
children were uncared for, there were orphans in every village. One could see
how this country was suffering socially and economically.”
The
breakthrough came at the end of the 1990s when it became possible to treat,
though not cure, HIV-AIDS. As Benn explained, noboby was going to get
themselves tested for HIV if the outcome could be a death sentence. But that
has changed since the arrival of drug therapy and the number of AIDS cases in Tanzania has declined.
People now
talk about AIDS
 |
| Japo Hemedi has been living with HIV for five years |
When the Tanzanian government launched
an HIV-AIDS public awareness campaign in 2005 calling on people to get
themeselves tested for the virus, Japo Hemedi was among those who went to a
doctor. She had been sick and feeling weak for a long time. The diagnosis
confirmed her worst fears. She was HIV positive. But thanks to free medical
treatment and supervision, she has now learned to live with the disease. The
50-year-old single mother of five children sells fresh fruits and vegetables at
a stand outside the hospital in Temeke district in Dar es Salaam. Her family
and most of her customers know she is HIV positive. “I have never felt
stigmatised. My family and neighbors have accepted me in spite of the disease,”
she said.
Up to 200
HIV patients are treated daily in the hospital in Temeke. Improved public
health education has made work easier for the doctors, said the hospital's
medical director, Dr. Suleiman Muttani. “Patients who come to the hospital with
a broken leg now tell the doctors when they are HIV positive. People have
learned they can live with AIDS”. However they have to take their medicationss
regularly and go to the doctor immediately in the event of an infection,“ he
said. "We are trying to make people understand that it is possible ro
control AIDS more easily than diabetes, for example," he added.
Possible to
live with AIDS
The Pasada
AIDS clinic in Dar es Salaam attends to the needs of about 3,000 adult patients
and almost 6000 children, including orphans, every month. Christa Alunas is a young mother. “I
was very sick before I came here” she said. Christa is HIV positive, but she
believes her nine month old daughter is HIV negative. “I have been treated here
since 2005. At the beginning I only had fever. Then I got skin rashes and later
tuberculosis. Both have been treated successfully,” says the 34 year old. “
Today I feel good. I take my medicines reglarly and my life is great."
 |
| NGO PSI hands out free condoms to help stop the spread of HIV-AIDS |
Pasada, a
Roman Catholic aid organisation, receives financial support from the German
Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief and the
Global Fund and takes part in the
Tanzanian government's program to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother
to child.
During
pregnancy, HIV-positive women receive regular medication to prevent
transmission of the disease in the womb. The babies are also given medical
treatment for HIV until they are 18 months old when they are tested for the
disease. Christa is confident that her daughter will grow up without HIV.
Recommending
but not sharing condoms
Pasada
director Frank Manase admits that his clinic's allegiance to the Catholic
Church imposes limits on its ability to prevent the spread of AIDS. It cannot
encourage the use of condoms. “Drawing
on our faith, we explain the importance of condoms, but we do not distribute
them. There is a conflict here. We do not turn people away who ask for condoms,
we tell them where they can get them," he said.
One NGO
that has no qualms about the use of condoms is Population Services
International, with which the German government has been working in Africa
since 2005 . PSI uses street theater, musical events and video evenings in
villages to educate people about HIV-AIDS and how to prevent it from spreading.
Khadija
Azoma has just been to an open air video presentation in the outskirts of Dar
es Salaam with her two children. The message in the video is clear, she said.
“When you are in a relationship, be faithful. When you do have an affair
outside your marriage, then use a condom.” Last year PSI distributed around 80
million condoms.
Tanzania is
on the right path
 |
| PSI uses street theater to educate people about HIV-AIDS and how to protect themselves |
Khadija
also wished that her husband had joined them for the video evening,
"because then he would now be
better informed,“ she said . But at least her children are going to be taught
what they need to know. Khadija said her young daughter has already had some
sex education, “but of course I will
want to talk to her as well.”
Christoph
Benn from Global Fund believes Tanzania is on the right road . Thanks to the
economic growth of recent years, the country is investing more in the health
sector. “But one should not forget what would have happened, had the country
not been able to beat back the disease.”
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