ABC - is dedicated to preventing children born from HIV positive women being born with the infection, which will remain with them for the whole of their lives. These are innocent victims who deserve to have a chance to grow up, go to school, have a job and potentially become leaders. They will fill the missing generation that is developing in Africa and that is debilitating the continent.
Mohamed Kibirige, a leading paediatrician and a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Club of Middlesbrough, conceived the programme when working with children with HIV. The research in the intervention procedure known a Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) was done in Uganda, the land of his birth and where he has annually returned for over twenty years to help in child health. He has a method of working in the rural areas, remote from hospitals and clinics to reach the extremely poor people who have no transport and cannot afford to travel to health centres. This ‘outreach’ method is commended by UNICEF as a model for all medical programmes in developing countries. Support has come from two districts in Rotary International in Britain & Ireland (RIBI), one in France and district 9200 in Africa. Middlesbrough is the leading club, and the centre for finance; the Rotary Clubs of Hartlepool, Stokesley, Stockton and Guisborough in district 1030; and Grantham; Kettering Huxloe; Boston St Botolph’s; Melton Mowbray; South Holland and Leicester de Montford in Rotary District 1070 have also shown support. In France the Rotary Club of Ruffec (1690) makes an annual contribution from its Nageraton. In Uganda the Rotary Clubs of Kampala and Kayunga are the partners in the matching grant which the project received from Rotary International Foundation in 2008. It is already an international project.
The pilot project started in December 2008 and up to the time for writing of the 102 children identified and born of HIV positive mothers only 2 have proved positive. This is in excess of 99% success. Figures are awaited from the parallel and larger programme run by UNICEF in northern Uganda in collaboration with ABC. The longer term involves working with World Health Organisation and UNICEF with the aim of succeeding Rotary International's Polio Eradication campaign. Rotary District 1070 has the opportunity to be part of this at an early stage.
At the Rotary International Convention in Birmingham June 2009, Mohamed presented his project to the 'Rotary for Fighting AIDS' audience and received a warm approval. He is currently seeking financial help from the Clinton Foundation, Coca Cola Africa and other sources to further fund the project as Rotary Foundation has restricted funds following the world financial crisis of recent times. We know that the figures and the method will prove to be sound when we present them to Rotary International as a proposed successor to the Polio Eradication campaign when it finally eradicates polio from the world. Polio was the scourge of the latter part of the 20th century; HIV/AIDS has the potential to be the devastation of vast populations across the globe in the 21st. ABC will stop it in its tracks at birth and give other programmes the possibility of stopping it spreading among adult populations.
Talks can be arranged at normanbertram@hotmail.com
You can read more on the website www.aidsbirthrightforchildren.org |
