February 2, 2009.
HIV Care at the village level.
Blog
HIV care for the poorest of the poor
Turning somersaults in the dust
Dear friends of GAIA,
After a week in Mali, I have returned home. My body is here, but somewhere, behind my retinas, a change has taken place and my view of Providence has been irrevocably altered. I look at clean streets and solid sidewalks and bright streetlights and I miss the families that should be gathered there, sharing dinner by lamplight. I miss the children that – if this were Bamako – would be turning somersaults in the dust by the side of the road, the bicycles transporting crates of chickens, and the rows of chairs full of bodies watching soccer by communal TV. Driving down street after street here in Providence, there is not a single donkey standing in an intersection. There are no baskets of oranges, no stacks of brightly colored plastic teapots, no curtains of sneakers hanging by their laces from store fronts, by the side of the road. Crossing the bridge over the river, I do not compete for space with big green bashis filled to the brim with smiling people, who laugh at the slightest provocation and share smiles as we edge forward, in endless traffic together. Horns do not honk. Policemen do not whistle. Diesel fumes do not fill the air. This city, on this side of the ocean that divides us, is silent. It is night time in Providence. The people who live here are locked in their houses. The mullahs do not sing out the hours of prayer.
So much better than just standing still
Hello
Another day in Paradise – although you’d be hard put to know it if you had just landed here from Mars. What makes this heady mix of mud, and joy, and neglect, and wild abandon into Paradise is so hard to describe.
Buckets of Mangoes
Preventing death in childbirth
This article is from the New York Times. Pregnancy and childbirth kill more than 536,000 women a year, more than half of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
In April 2009, GAIA volunteer Rebecca Gerber brought an ultrasound machine to Mali. GAIA VF is Part of the Solution. We Take Action.
What GAIA VF does that others don’t
Since 2005, GAIA VF has been providing Mother to Child HIV Transmission Prevention in Mali, West Africa.
This is the simplest, most direct means of preventing HIV. It is also incredibly low cost.
GLOBAL: Group Says Infants Needlessly Get HIV
Boston Globe (05.22.09) – Friday, May 22, 2009
Marilyn Chase, Bloomberg News
AIDS in Paradise
Hope is a Vaccine on World AIDS Day 2008
In celebration of World AIDS Day, the Global Alliance to Immunize against AIDS (GAIA) Vaccine Foundation will honor the humanitarian work of seven noted HIV/AIDS advocates.
This year’s award recipients are:
KAP studies in Sikoro Mali
Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices and Willingness to Participate in HIV Vaccine trials among urban residents of Bamako, Mali, in West Africa
Karamoko Tounkara1, Yssouf Kone2, Ben Aboubacar1, Ousmane Koita1, Sankare Moussa3,
Dolo Ibrahima3, Siby Fanta3, and Anne S. De Groot4
Push Pull Intervention in Sikoro Mali
World AIDS Conference 2008 Mexico City
WAC Abstract STI Sikoro
Published as poster abstract in “CD accompanying WAC brochure”
August 2008
Abstract title: Increased HIV and STI testing in Bamako, Mali using a push/pull intervention
Abstract number: CDC0368