Monday, February 05, 2007

Getting Back to Living with HIV/AIDS Instead of Dying From It

AtoZ has been working with the local government hospital here in Arusha to sell bed nets to malaria patients at a subsidized price. There are 10,000 cases of malaria in this hospital every year, so I went to meet the Regional Medical Officer there to exchange ideas about how we might distribute bed nets through all Tanzanian government hospitals. It turns out that the pilot of AtoZ's distribution scheme in this hospital was quite innovative. When patients came in with malaria who were obviously very poor, the doctor would write a prescription for the subsidized net. AtoZ would supply the nets in the hospital's pharmacy, and the pharmacy allowed them to be stocked without adding any profit margin for itself.

One of the challenges however, has been to get doctors to actually write the prescriptions given so many other priorities and demands on their time (resources are tight---this hospital has long lines and sleeps two strangers to a bed at times). We also found that the price, even at a subsidized level (roughly 3-4 USD), is still too expensive for many patients in the government hospital. We did brainstorm some interesting solutions for providing incentives to the doctors and cross subsidizing the nets from one distribution channel to another.

While I was there, I met a woman who has AIDS. The nurse (who happened to be this woman's cousin) told me that none of her treatment seemed to be working and the doctors had tried so many tests. She looked so beautiful wrapped in a bright yellow kanga skirt and a golden patterned headwrap, but I couldn't help but see the pain in her eyes. She was young like me, yet she walked slowly like a woman of 90 years old. I came home that night to hear a story from a friend about his good 30 year old friend dying of AIDS a few days earlier. While my time here in Tanzania has me focusing on malaria, this was a good reminder of the numerous other challenges we are called to meet in caring for those who are suffering from disease.

A new short film, THE BICYCLE, is an inspiring experience in just that. It follows Pax Chingawale as he cycles over 20km per day from village to village in Malawi, fighting AIDS at the grassroots. Pax volunteers with Dignitas International, headed up by Dr. James Orbinski, who accepted the Nobel Peace Price for Medecins sans Frontieres.

The movie shows us how determined volunteers and antiretroviral drug treatments allow millions of people to get back to living with HIV/AIDS instead of dying from it.

You can view the film by clicking here and going to the section "Watch Videos."

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