A resource, resourceful stories, and a solution that lies in government hands . . .
Dziwani Knowledge Centre for Health Afya Mzuri
This is an aptly named centre at Afya Mzuri because it is an invaluable resource for anyone who needs to know more about the health issues that are critical here. That includes people living with HIV, students, doctors, researchers, government and nongovernment staffers — and journalists.
The six computers in the research room are open to the public who register for free and become members. Here, you will find access to countless databases and sites from which you can download reports and other information that help inform policy and the public.
In addition you can read works on health issues — including in Braille — and see informational and training videos on the three computers in the Multi-media room.
The centre even has a reading corner for children — in itself material for an enlightening story of how information affecting the duration and quality of life are made accessible to the youngest consumers of health services.
Free membership gets you on the email list for e-bulletin, a daily email update that includes articles from daily local papers and postings from selected Internet sites. Journalists interested in covering health and looking for story leads should subscribe by writing to:
resourcecentre@afyamzuri.org.zm
The Heroines of Majengo
Masuzyo Chakwe of the Post has written a fascinating and eloquent story about apparently HIV-resistant women in the Kenya slum Majengo, a place, as she puts it that may not mean much to most people, “but to some medical researchers . . . rings with hope.”
” . . . it does not even look close to a medical haven,” she writes, “not with its lacing of rusted shacks and haphazardly arranged mud-bricked huts, its open-air makret, salons, hawkers pitching second-hand clothes and women selling sex for the equivalent of pennies . . .”
But she points out, the place has attracted attention since 1986, when some of those women, in spite of multiple exposures to the virus that leads to AIDS, were found to have remained free of HIV.
Scientists studying these women hope to find information that will help them to find a vaccine against HIV, the best hope to containing the epidemic that continues to spread faster than efforts to treat it.
It is a study that has seen setbacks, but those, too have informed scientists who are seeking information on the factors that might lead to resistance to the virus.
This exceedingly well-put together article goes beyond Majengo, though, describing efforts to identify a vaccine in Zambia, which, with a prevalence of the virus of more than 14 percent, could play an important role in solving the puzzle of this ongoing public health crisis.
HealthWriterZambia does wish the article didn’t use the word “prostitutes,” to describe women such as Hidaya, who, according to the story, supported her three children by selling sex since her huband became sick from AIDS.
The word “prostitute” sums up these women’s identities on the basis of their circumstances, and for that reason is on this site’s Bad Word List. The headline could have used the word “heroine” to characterise women who in spite of having few resources, could provide an answer to questions that have boggled researchers for more than a quarter century.
A plague that robs orphans of their culture . . .
This moving story from Irin Plus News shows what you can do to show the rippling impact of AIDS epidemic when you think beyond the obvious and ask questions. This story identifies a neglected need among orphaned children, and another way that a public health threat takes a toll on the strength of a society.
If you are interested in solutions . . .
This New York Times article on needle-exchange programs gives a good explanation of how “harm reduction” works — and how the best effectiveness of this politically sensitive approach will lie in the hands of governments. As Zambia’s Mid-term report on the country’s AIDS strategy — which recommends revisiting laws against homosexual sex and penalties for drug use — indicates, the importance of realistic, practical approaches is beginning to be recognized here.
