At least for 25,000 enrolled in the collaborative project involving the Daughters of Charity and the Community of Sant’Egidio. The program has a 98% success rate in preventing transmission of HIV/AIDS virus during pregnancy, birht or breast feeding.

In the last five years the Daughters of Charity, in collaboration with an Italian lay community, the Community of Sant’Egidio, have opened 5 new DREAM (Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition) centers in Africa: in Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, the Congo, and Tanzania.  They also operate a DREAM center which opened in 2002 in Mozambique.

Today there are almost 25,000 people enrolled in these centers for treatment, nutrition, counseling and support. Tens of thousands of people have been tested and, thankfully, the results have been negative for the majority, but the prevalence of HIV is still very high in many of these countries.

However, the good news is that, with effective treatment, people with HIV/AIDS can live very normal lives. A program like DREAM puts strong emphasis on strict adherence to a treatment regime.  DREAM follows up in a determined way, through home-care teams, any clients who default or fall away for whatever reason.

Monthly support groups, to which all clients are invited, are a constant part of the program.  Different groups exist for adults, teenagers and children because the issues for each of these age groups differ greatly. Life with HIV/AIDS can be especially challenging for adolescents.

The provision of adequate nourishment, for those whose nutritional status requires it, is one of the most important aspects of the program for mothers and their children. Antiretroviral drugs are very difficult to take without proper nutrition and are sometimes abandoned because they make the person sick. With adequate nutrition and good clinical support, this becomes much less a problem.

DREAM patients whose health has been restored through treatment are trained as volunteers and play a specific role in helping new patients to remain faithful to taking the daily drugs, keeping appointments, and attending support groups.

Special emphasis is put on the prevention of mother- to-child transmission, so pregnant women are given very attentive care. When adhered to properly, DREAM has a 98% success rate in preventing the transmission of the HIV/AIDS virus during pregnancy, birth or during breastfeeding. To date, cumulative statistics show that, of 1,034 pregnancies followed, only six babies have tested positive.

DREAM is a comprehensive program and therefore expensive to run. There are now 38 DREAM centers in Africa. Apart from those administered by the Daughters of Charity, the Community of Sant’Egidio runs other centers, in collaboration with other groups, in Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Angola, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, and Kenya. Their recent statistics celebrated the 1,000,000^th medical visit in DREAM.  That, of course, is not just a figure, but involves a multi-faceted response to a reality that afflicts so many who are marginalized and disadvantaged.

Each DREAM center touches the lives of between 2,000 and 10,000 patients annually through one or all the different aspects of the program; the molecular laboratory, the clinic, home-based care, care for pregnant women, nutritional supplementation, and education.  The centers cost between $300,000 and $1,000,000 USD annually, and will cost more as numbers increase.

Costs differ from country to country and between rural and urban centers and are also impacted by civil unrest, natural disasters, and lack of rain and famine. In each country DREAM works in collaboration with the national Ministry of Health and as part of a national response.

Programs are affected positively by good governance and national collaborative plans to deal with the challenge of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

Photo gallery to follow soon.