Realizou-se em Paris, de 18 a 22 de Janeiro, um Congresso internacional de formação que contou com a presença de representantes da Comunidade de Sant'Egidio e das Filhas da Caridade de São Vicente de’ Paoli.
A sede do Congresso foi a Casa Generalícia das Filhas da Caridade na Rue du Bac, ao lado do famoso e frequentado santuário da Medalha milagrosa.
Entre as Irmãs Vicentinas e a Comunidade de Sant'Egidio instaurou-se, há já vários anos, uma feliz e profícua colaboração que permitiu a implementação de DREAM em vários países africanos.
DREAM, acrónimo de Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition, é um programa de abordagem global na luta contra a SIDA em África iniciado em Fevereiro de 2002 pela Comunidade de Sant’Egidio.
Hoje, encontra-se em Moçambique, no Malawi, na Tanzânia, no Quénia, na República da Guiné, na Guiné-Bissau, na Nigéria, em Angola, na República Democrática do Congo, nos Camarões...
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.
Vivemos hoje, um período de desencorajamento sobre a SIDA. Muitos perguntam: o que é que se faz? para onde vamos?
As últimas experiências com a vacina não deixam entrever resultados confortantes, não parecem emergir particulares novidades. Pelo contrário, muitos especialistas do sector acham necessário repensar e, de maneira radical, o tipo de abordagem vacinal para o vírus do HIV.
Por outro lado, olhando também para os números, nem sequer a última relação da UNAIDS é muito encorajadora. É verdade, já se fala do início do declino da pandemia mas, na realidade, olhando para os dados, parece observar-se um quadro estacionário, onde o achatamento das curvas dos gráficos parece dever-se a um equilíbrio que se deslocou para cima (alto número de novos infectados, ainda superior ao elevado número de decessos).
Neste contexto, queremos fazer o ponto sobre o que é hoje DREAM.
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.