SIDA & VIH
AVERT’s HIV & AIDS Projects in Africa and India
AVERT is an international AIDS charity with HIV & AIDS projects in Africa and India. Our projects have a particular emphasis on sustainable, cost-effective community responses to HIV & AIDS. Each project is developed and run according to the specific needs of the area and organisations, by people who are local to the area. This page outlines some AVERT projects in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and India.
Sisonke
Sisonke is a large community project based near East London in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Sisonke is in a rural, low income area with a high HIV prevalence. The project has developed considerably in the last year and now includes more than a dozen community groups who help HIV positive people to get treatment, the groups also provide community care for more than 800 children orphaned or severely affected by HIV and AIDS, and they help to make sure HIV positive people get enough food.
AVERT funds an AIDS treatment education worker, who helps people overcome difficulties such as understanding treatment (because of low literacy levels), and awareness about access to treatment. Food and care for the children is done by the community working together, in fact the name of the project, “Sisonke”, means coming together, or working together.
The community groups make sure the children seriously affected by HIV/AIDS get to school in the mornings, and when school ends they cook for the children in groups, and supervise the children doing their homework. The AVERT funding includes providing cooking stoves and large pots, gardening tools, and education in how to grow vegetables as efficiently as possible with very limited resources.
Tholulwazi
Tholulwazi is an organisation which AVERT helped local people to set up, and which works in a rural area of about 40km x 40km in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This is one of the areas in the world that has been most severely affected by AIDS.
A major part of Tholulwazi's work is helping the orphans and other children seriously affected by AIDS, and there are estimated to be more than 3,000 children in the area who have already been ophaned by AIDS. Many of these children are now being looked after by elderly grandparents.
For those families in the most severe need emergency food parcels are provided, whilst paralegal and other workers help with longer term more sustainable solutions. These particularly focus on obtaining identity papers and government grants for the children and families.
Tholulwazi also helps children to stay in school through providing school uniforms, and has a number of education programs for both children and young adults.
Manguzi Hospital
AVERT is providing funding for HIV positive pregnant women to receive the drug AZT to reduce the risk of their babies becoming infected. AVERT is paying for the drugs until they become available from the South African government. The “dual therapy” is being organised by Dr Colin Pfaff who also helps with the Tholulwazi Uzivikele NGO.
Other Funding in South Africa
AVERT also funds home-based care workers and grants workers in Missionvale township, and the salaries of some HIV counsellors at Tintswalo hospital.
Blantyre - Medical Research
AVERT funds a medical research project in Blantyre, Southern Malawi. There are many children infected with HIV in Southern Africa, and these children need to be treated with antiretroviral drugs. Most research into antiretroviral treatment has been done with adults, and the knowledge of how antiretroviral therapy affects children largely applies to well-nourished children who are free from medical conditions other than their HIV positive status.
In Southern Africa, due to levels of poverty, HIV positive children are more likely to be malnourished, and may have other infections, such as tuberculosis, which will affect the way the antiretroviral drugs work in their bodies. Because of this, AVERT funds medical researchers in Blantyre, Malawi, who are collaborating with experts in pharmacokinetics (the study of absorption, distribution, metabolism, interaction and elimination of drugs in the body) in Liverpool, in order to learn more about the safe and effective prescription of antiretroviral treatment for children in Southern Africa.
Infrastructure for HIV testing
In Mozambique, AVERT funds the building of laboratory infrastructure, to make testing for HIV and CD4 counts (tests that determine at what point someone should start antiretroviral treatment) possible.
AVERT also provided the start up costs of the national reference laboratory in Mozambique, that now carries out thousands of CD4 tests every year for people with HIV. Ilesh Jani, who runs the laboratory said:
“ Without AVERT’s help this laboratory would never have existed. ”
As well as this, AVERT funds some research into HIV testing, especially the testing of viral loads in children, with the aim of developing better treatment.
People living with HIV and AIDS have a very important role to play, not only in looking after their own health, but also in educating other people about the disease. AVERT is supporting the Tusole Lwangunoko Support Group, who are based in a rural area near Livingstone. AVERT is also helping a rural health centre in the same area to provide additional food for the children under five who have been particularly severely affected by AIDS.
Sangram
AVERT funds an HIV and AIDS awareness project which operates in and around Sangli, India. The project SANGRAM works with an organised collective of health workers, women in sex work and their sons. It is focused on HIV & AIDS awareness, education and treatment among transport workers. Sex work is particularly prevalent in India, in Sangli alone there are around 2000 active sex workers, and long-distance truck drivers are often their clients.
In this outreach program, SANGRAM focuses on empowerment of women in sex work (empowerment is vital in having the ability to protect one’s self against HIV, for example with the ability to insist on condom use) and reaches out to truck-drivers to raise awareness of STDs and the need for testing. This is a highly effective sexual health education program, based on empowerment, respect and reliance on sex workers, and on the fact that sex workers and truck drivers are the people in the best position to educate other sex workers and truck drivers. AVERT funds the salaries of 14 outreach workers, a doctor and a driver, as well as their travel costs and a mobile clinic.
Several years ago, the Sangli hospital basement, where antiretroviral treatment (ARVs) was provided, was flooded beyond repair. It became clear that although ARVs existed in this area, there was no space from which to provide them. In order to make these drugs available, AVERT has been funding the building of an ARV centre, which has just been finished.
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