The abused and orphaned children in Pastor Julius Bonani's church are the face of an AIDS epidemic that is killing nearly 1,000 South Africans a day and infecting even more.
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(Photo: AP Images / Schalk van Zuydam)Children interact in the Barcelona Baptist Church where abused and orphaned children are taken care of under the supervision of Pastor Julius Bonani in the poor area of Barselona, South Africa, Tuesday, March 18, 2008. The abused and orphaned children in Pastor Julius Bonani's church personify the suffering, stigma and needless death inflicted by AIDS which is killing nearly 1,000 South Africans per day and infecting even more.
And yet, the 18 children who live in Bonani's heartbreak home, in a shanty town filled with dust and despair, also personify a tortuous journey toward hope in the country most affected by the AIDS crisis. After a decade of denial under a president who has disputed the cause of AIDS and a health minister who thinks garlic is a remedy, there is growing political will to tackle the crisis.
The challenges are overwhelming. An estimated 5.4 million of South Africa's 48 million people have the virus — the highest total of any country. But after years of pressure from activists, South Africa now boasts the world's biggest AIDS treatment program.
The number of people receiving therapy has more than tripled in just two years, from 143,000 in March 2006 to 456,000 at the end of February, according to government statistics. That's still only half the estimated 900,000 who have developed full-blown AIDS and need treatment, but a national plan launched a year ago aims to provide care and treatment to 80 percent by 2011 and halving the number of new infections.
Some 40,000 children nationwide are receiving AIDS drugs, including the 18 in Bonani's church — children such as Thandiswa, who was found sucking at the wizened breast of her dying mother, her dead twin at her side. And Abina, who still bears the scars of cigarettes her drunken father extinguished on her skin in fury that she had HIV. And Siphosethu, who was abandoned just after birth, smothered in rags, crawling with ants and reeking of festering sores.
They are being transformed into bubbly, bossy 6-year-old Thandiswa; giggling, wriggling Abina; and Siphosethu, whose name means "our gift." They are given their medicine every day with a helping of porridge and a big dollop of love.
"Not one child in our care has died," says Bonani, with a smile. "We are so very, very proud of them."
Bonani and his wife, Lulama, who have looked after their 13-year-old HIV-positive grandson since their own daughter died of AIDS, hope the children in their care will be the last generation infected with HIV through their mother's womb or breast milk.
More than 90 percent of pregnant women with HIV in the Western Cape province around Cape Town now receive drugs to prevent the virus from passing to their unborn children. But in poorer areas like the rural Eastern Cape, the number of women on medication is nearer half.
Health professionals and activists say the biggest test of the government's commitment will be what it does to reduce mother-to-child transmission.
Mortality rates for women and young children are higher now than they were in 1990, before the end of apartheid, according to a study by the Medical Research Council, which said South Africa was one of only 12 countries suffering such increases.
The report, titled "Every Death Counts," said at least 260 mothers, newborns and children under 5 die every day in South Africa, with HIV, AIDS and related infections like tuberculosis and pneumonia responsible for about two-thirds of the deaths.
After four years of delay, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in February issued guidelines that comply with World Health Organization recommendations: Doctors should give two drugs, nevirapine and AZT, to pregnant women, not just nevirapine, because the dual therapy is much more effective than the single drug. It is now up to individual provinces to implement the new strategy. Continue >>
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WE HEAL OR SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS UNDER 21DAYS
Do you know that there are over 200 people been healed of HIV? Do you know that over 21000 people are been healed of cancer, Ulcer, Comma and heart diseases . Do you know that over 7000 women, who were called barren, today are mother of children? Are u seeking for Employment, promotion in your office or is your marriage shaken? Are you having spiritual attack that you can sleep or do you want to know what spiritualism or about, how you can hear God’s word and build our spiritual life and how you obtain power to heal people. ALL THIS CAN HAPPEN BETWEEN 21 DAYS. If interested please contact us for counseling and Solution to your problems [ thehealingtemple@live.com]
Bishop Cyril I. Stone.
WE HEAL OR SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS UNDER 21DAYS
Do you know that there are over 200 people been healed of HIV? Do you know that over 21000 people are been healed of cancer, Ulcer, Comma and heart diseases or any kind of diseases. Do you know that over 7000 women, who were called barren, today are mother of children? Are u seeking for Employment, promotion in your office or is your marriage shaken? Are you having spiritual attack that you can sleep or do you want to know what spiritualism or about, how you can hear God’s word and build our spiritual life and how you obtain power to heal people. ALL THIS CAN HAPPEN BETWEEN 21 DAYS. If interested please contact us for counseling and Solution to your problems [ thehealingtemple@live.com]
Bishop Cyril I. Stone.