Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 9/13/2005

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CONTENT:

1 - ZAMBIA: Community benefits from free ARVs

1 - ZAMBIA: Community benefits from free ARVs

LUSAKA, 13 September (PLUSNEWS) - The sleepy railway town of Kapiri Mposhi,

north of Zambian capital, Lusaka, comes alive every Thursday evening when the

Tanzania-Zambia Railways Authority (TAZARA) passenger train pulls in to disgorge

its weekly load of business travellers, tourists and drifters from

Dar-es-Salaam, capital of Tanzania.

Kapiri Mposhi lies in the transport corridor that links Zambia to the port of

Dar-es-Salaam in the northeast, the Democratic Republic of Congo to the

northwest and Zimbabwe to the south.

Long-distance truckdrivers also stop over in the town, and towards the end of

each week the shoppers and fun seekers arrive.

" It is like this every Thursday, " said Lizzy Mbwili, coordinator of the Street

Kids, Orphans and Widows Association (SKOWA), a local NGO. " The whole province

awaits the TAZARA and then converges to cash in on the increased activity. For

many people, this is the only source of livelihood. "

Many of the district's inhabitants used to work at the country's only glass

manufacturing plant until it shut down six years ago; reduced production on the

Copperbelt, and the post-apartheid re-emergence of South African ports as viable

routes to the sea have all contributed to reduced economic activity in the town.

" Not surprisingly, the loss of conventional employment opportunities has seen a

marked increase in commercial sex work. Inevitably, that has seen an increase in

the rate of HIV/AIDS infection, " said Mbwili.

A treatment programme run by Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the Zambian

government kicked off in July 2004, when the Kawama clinic became one of the

first health facilities to begin distributing antiretroviral (ARV) medication

free of charge. Kapiri Mposhi is one of the worst-affected areas in the country.

Masautso Mwanza, a middle-aged father of four, is one of 450 people receiving

ARVs at the clinic. Before taking the drugs he constantly suffered opportunistic

infections and could not walk without being supported; seven months ago he lay

on a bench at the clinic waiting to die. Now a healthy-looking Mwanza is looking

forward to going back to work as a truckdriver.

Another patient at the clinic, Rodger Banda, 36, said, " I have seen many people

getting better, and I have hope that with this medication I will get to live

much longer. Before I came for treatment I could not walk for long distances

without having breathing complications, but now I can even go jogging - I am

very fit, " he said, flexing his muscles.

Kawama clinic is known by the community as the ARV clinic, and HIV-positive

people queuing for their medication are no longer concerned about discriminatory

attitudes they might encounter.

" People's attitudes are changing. I used to see many people that I knew, waiting

for the [HIV/AIDS] services but as soon as I approached them, they told me they

were waiting for someone. They now freely tell me that they have come to check

their CD4 count whenever I see them here, " noted Taveres, the MSF field

coordinator in Kapiri Mposhi.

According to Ruth Lubambula, the HIV/AIDS coordinator at the centre, more people

were visiting the voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) centre - as many as

474 in July this year.

Dr Kanyanta Sunkutu, an advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in

Zambia, acknowledged the effect of the medication. " These drugs slow down HIV

replication to such an extent that the viral load in the blood is reduced to

very low and even undetectable levels, allowing CD4 counts to recover. "

He called on the government to adopt more flexible testing policy, including

making HIV tests routinely available at public health facilities to encourage

more people to do so.

In Kapiri Mposhi, Mwanza reflected that " HIV and AIDS is like a train that is

moving forward ... you get on it and move forward [by getting treatment] or you

get left behind. "

[ENDS]

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