In letzter Zeit wurden viele Artikel mit negativem und traurigem Inhalt in der Zeitung veröffentlicht, welche sich im Kavango abgespielt haben. Erfreulicherweise wird ab und zu auch darüber berichtet, was die Zivilgesellschaft leistet und welch positive Initiativen sie hervorbringt. Ein solches Beispiel von letzter Woche hat uns besonders berührt. Eine junge Frau, Monica Alfred, kocht für HIV/AIDS betroffene Kinder und Frauen im Hinterhof ihres Friseursalons. Regelmüssige Nahrungsaufnahme ist eine wichtige Voraussetzung, dass der Gesundheitszustand der Betroffenen stabil bleibt und sie die Medikamente regelmässig einnehmen können.
Lest selbst:
Monica nurtures Rundu community
by Nomhle Kangootui 2015-11-04 The Namibian Newspaper
FOR the past two years, Monica Alfred has been managing an orphanage and helping hundreds of people affected and infected by HIV-AIDS. Undaunted by the accompanying stigma because she works and looks after people living with the disease, she said making a difference in the lives of those abandoned means everything to her.
“Putting a smile on someone who is not sure they will see the sun rise tomorrow means a lot to me. When I first moved to Rundu some years back, I saw how children and women were dying. They did not take medication regularly because of food shortages. This pained my heart a lot. I decided to do something about it,” Alfred said.
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| THE HAND THAT FEEDS. Monica Alfred feeding a child living with HIV. |
Alfred, who owns a hair salon, said she started giving food to the women and their children living with HIV-AIDS in a backroom of her salon. “When the first year passed, the demand became higher. I could not accommodate all the mothers and children at the salon. I also started cooking in bigger pots,” said Alfred. She said it is important for people to help others even if they are strangers because if those living with HIV-AIDS do not have food, it becomes difficult for them to take their medication on time.
“I do not have a lot of money but I share the little that I have with mothers and their children and orphans. Since I started, most of these mothers are now taking their medication. We used to hear every second day that someone had died of AIDS, but now the number has decreased. And that makes me proud,” said Alfred.
Medication to treat HIV-AIDS is called antiretroviral therapy (ART).
Patients usually take a combination of three medications, often including a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) or a protease inhibitor (PI) or an integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) plus two nucleoside or nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). Sometimes two or three of these medicines are combined into one tablet. Each class of medication has a specific task, which works best when it is combined with another class of medication. The medication should be refilled regularly and is considered a “chronic medication,” which means it should be taken indefinitely, providing the patient tolerates it well.
According to the Namibia Statistics Agency, HIV-AIDS was one of the main reasons for hospitalisation in the country. Since 2010 there has been a steady decline in the number countrywide. The director of AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (Arasa), Michaela Clayton, confirmed that the numbers of HIV-AIDS patients hospitalised has decreased. “I would think that the decrease in numbers of people being hospitalised as a result of HIV is attributable to the high level of ART coverage in Namibia,” Clayton said.
UNAIDS 2015 shows that Namibia's progress report which states that 'The number of adult PLHIV on ART has increased from 75 681 (March 2010) to 121 146 (September 2014) representing over 90% coverage of people needing ART'.
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