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WORLD*
*WOMEN ORGANIZED TO RESPOND TO LIFE-THREATENING DISEASES
October 2002
THINKING GLOBALLY at the "Global Strategies" conference, and ACTING
LOCALLY at the "Focus on Women" conference - A report from Uganda
By Rebecca Denison
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The third conference on Global Strategies for the Prevention of HIV Transmission
from Mothers to Infants, held in Kampala, Uganda from September 9-13, 2001, was
an international meeting attended by AIDS educators, researchers, doctors, nurses
and activists from all over the world. A few blocks away, a satellite conference
organized by Ugandan women and American supporters entitled "A Focus on Women"
created the opportunity for Ugandans to access and dialogue about those sane issues.
As WORLD's editor, and an HIV+ mother of 5-year-old twins, I participated in both
conferences. This is part one of my report. (Part two will come out in November.)
For more information on topics or organizations mentioned in these issues, see
the resources list on p. 8 of the November issue, or check out WORLD's website
at www.womenhiv.org.
September 6: Why go to Uganda?
I have wanted to go to Uganda since 1992 when I met HIV-positive African women
for the first time at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. That's when
I heard about HIV+ women who had no access to lab tests like CD4+(T-cell) counts,
or to medications. Each time they said good-bye to the children they left with
relatives in the villages to go to jobs in bigger cities, they didn't know if
they would live to see them again. That's when I realized that for most of the
world, AIDS is a heterosexual epidemic.
The three Ugandan women I met at that 1992 conference told me about losing
husbands and babies to AIDS with no access to health care. They returned home
to create NACWOLA, the National Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda.
Although all three have since died of AIDS, others have taken up the cause. Today,
NACWOLA has registered over 50,000 women as members.
Uganda's government has been notably ahead of other African governments in
mobilizing a response to the AIDS epidemic. It was there that one of the world's
biggest breakthroughs in AIDS research took place in 1999, when the HIVNet 012
study showed that transmission of HIV from mothers to babies could be cut in half
by a drug regimen that is amazingly cheap (U.S. $4) and simple (one dose to the
mother at the onset of labor, and one to the baby after birth). Finally, an intervention
the developing world could afford, and the manufacturer of the drug - known as
nevirapine, NVP or Viramune - was offering to make it free to HIV+ pregnant women
and their babies.
September 8: Arriving in Africa
I pack clothes, malaria-prevention meds, photos of my family, school supplies
for an orphan a friend's sponsoring, back issues of WORLD, and 24 copies of "Where
women have no doctor" (a great book by the Hesperian Foundation) to give
to AIDS organizations.
Uganda: "Uganda was the first African nation to acknowledge the
severity of the AIDS epidemic. Their leadership which began at President Yoweri
Museveni's level and extended throughout the government and medical community,
resulted in what many thought was impossible - a dramatic reduction in the seroprevalence
of HIV infection from 18.5% in 1995 to 8.3% in 1999……Every government
department issues anti-AIDS warnings; roadside billboards promote safe sex; sex
is discussed openly; NGOs have permission to freely educate people about HIV/AIDS.
It seems that everyone in Uganda is doing what he or she can to prevent HIV…It
is appropriate that Uganda host the first conference to be held in a developing
country on Global Strategies for the Prevention of HIV Transmission from Mothers
to Infants."
President's speech shocks some
Uganda's President Museveni is on the agenda to speak, but he has sent his new
Minister of Health to read his speech. There is encouraging news. Last year, only
40% of pregnant women at antenatal clinics were willing to be tested. This year
it is 70%. (I'm guessing it's because there's more they can do now.)
He says the most effective way to protect babies from being born infected is to
eliminate HIV from the parents. "Fathers should come forward to know their
status, and to not have children if they're positive. Men always have their way.
I therefore appeal to men to have their serostatus determined so together with
women we prevent infection of infants with deadly HIV."
The Minister of Health continues to read the President's speech, saying that we
must protect babies from HIV, because while HIV is usually a disease of choice
for adults, the babies are innocent. (This stirs up controversy.)
Then he says, "Infants with HIV usually do not survive their second birthday.
With this, I declare the conference open." Wow. So many women here have HIV+
babies. Does he realize the impact of what he had said? I feel devastated by his
words. How do those infected children feel? His statement is true for some, but
not for most. He gives no hope or encouragement that the course of disease can
be changed (though I know with money, medication, political will and medical know-how
it can.) I think of the 21 year old at home who was an infected as a baby, and
is doing well.
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