28/01/2010
Paris, France – A Meeting which reinforces the collaboration with the Daughters of Charity
An international training Meeting between representatives of the Sant’Egidio community and the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paoli was held in Paris from Jan. 18 – 22.
The Meeting was held at the Superior General House of the Daughters of Charity in Rue du Bac, close to the famous and much-visited sanctuary of the miraculous Medal.
Over the years, the Community of Sant’Egidio and the Daughters of Charity have established a felicitous and fruitful collaboration which has allowed for the development of DREAM in various African countries...
Audio and videosDREAM, the acronym for Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition, is a programme based on a holistic approach of treating AIDS in Africa, launched in February 2002 by the Community of St Egidio.
Today, the programme is present in Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, the Republic of Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon...
DREAM centres
DREAM figures
Reports
RSS27/07/2009
ProNut-HIV
DREAM study: Extended prenatal ART protects against MTCT of HIV at low and high CD4 levels
Theo Smart, Friday, July 24, 2009
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) administered during pregnancy and breastfeeding reduces the risk of a woman transmitting HIV to her infant to just 2% by the time the child is six months of age — even without caesarean sections or formula feeding, according to a retrospective analysis of participants in the Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition (DREAM) programme in sub-Saharan Africa, presented this week at the International AIDS Society conference in Cape Town.
Without ART, even women with CD4 cell counts over 350 cells were at high risk of transmitting the virus to their infants: “In our cohort, 37% of the transmissions that occurred were in this group with CD4 cell counts over 350,” said Professor Leonardo Palombi, of the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, who presented on behalf of the Dream Programme.
But the benefit of ART was observed regardless of whether the mother had a low or high CD4 cell count when she went on treatment — and the longer that she was on treatment, the better. In fact, a shorter course of pre-delivery ART (less than 30 days) was strongly associated with HIV transmission and death at 1 month and between 1 and 6 months of age. Again, “this effect was also apparent in the women with higher CD4 cell counts,” said Prof Palombi.
03/06/2009
Editorial
An analysis of the intuitions and achievements of the DREAM project.
There is an atmosphere of dejection regarding AIDS. Many people are asking themselves, ‘What should we do? Where do we go from here?’
The latest vaccine experiments do not give grounds for hope of encouraging results, nothing new of note seems to emerge. On the contrary, many experts in the field believe that a radical re-think on the type of approach to the vaccine for the HIV virus is necessary.
The statistics contained in the latest UNAIDS report are not very encouraging either. Yes, they speak of the beginning of a decline in the pandemic but in reality, looking at the graphs of the data, they seem to reflect a stationary situation.
This is the context in which we would like to assess what the project DREAM is today.
24/08/2009
The Washington Post (USA)
FAITH IN ACTION
Interfaith Health-Care Reform
By Katherine Marshall
Hospital waiting rooms are glum places pretty much everywhere. People, sick or injured, wait and wait and wait. Nowhere are the huge gaps between rich and poor so graphically in evidence. That's the essence of the American health reform challenge, however deeply it gets submerged in the passionate debates now raging: to bridge those gaps so that the misery of illness is not compounded by inability to pay.
The issues are not just American, they are global. And they have many faith dimensions.
The waiting room at the Sihanouk Hospital of Hope in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is full of sick people. It's hot and they wait outside. Faces are resigned, many show obvious pain, and worried relatives cluster nearby. But the hospital's name is apt: Hope, because this is a well-run facility, bustling with doctors from many countries. And a central principle is that care is free of charge, and available to anyone. Cambodian people sell their last bullock and travel for days to get here. They call it the hospital of God or the hospital of angels.
The hospital's story is unique, but there are many stories rather like it: a facility built because of a deep and faith-inspired determination to care for people. The Sihanouk Hospital came about through an alliance among a Jewish journalist and stubborn activist; a remarkable Japanese Shinto leader and philanthropist; an American Christian nongovernmental organization; and a Buddhist nation.
Sito web realizzato con il contributo dell'Unione Europea ::
Sito web ospitato e sostenuto dal CASPUR