i have spent this week with the aidsrelief team, who are a special medical unit fighting valiantly to fight hiv/aids in the kijabe catchment area. they provide free antiretroviral therapy (arvs) and various symptomatic treatment free of charge to all hiv positive people who want it – courtesy of pepfar- the president’s (of the united states) emergency plan for aids relief. so i have been learning a lot about cd4 count trends, viral loads, the various antiretroviral regimens, protocol for switching to second line therapy, etc. two days i spent in their clinic in the hospital – doing rounds of the aids patients who are in the hospital at the time and then clinics. and then i went to two rural clinics in places called gilgil and githunguri, where the clinicians go to the people’s towns for their follow up appointments. because one of the worst things that can happen is that people will start taking arvs and then be inconsistent – and the virus easily develops mutations to the drugs – and they spread it – and next thing you know the drugs won’t work on anyone anymore. so the biggest challenge is keeping people adherent to their regimens. its such a big deal that there are people hired to go around to patients homes and make sure they are taking their meds. remarkably, even though the drugs are the cheaper ones available, many people can live their entire lives on them and never come down with aids.
last weekend, i got to go into nairobi and stay with my aunt who lives there for a couple nights. it was a lot of fun. on sunday we went to nairobi baptist church (huge and basically western despite the lack of mzungus [white people]) and then got some chinese food. and on saturday i hung out with some fellow canadians! two nurses who are volunteering at an internally displaced people (idp) camp, and a guy who is working at an orphanage.
we went to the famous kibera, the second largest slum in the world after soweto south africa, and got a tour from a really cool kenyan guy who lives there. he is spearheading a large number of development projects there, and earns his money by organizing the filming of various documentaries and films such as the constant gardener. it was very interesting just to walk around in the slum – the kids in there certainly weren’t suffering for lack of happiness! conditions were pretty bad though, as you can probably imagine. the worst problem is the lack of garbage and sewage disposal, so those two things in particular tend to pile up all over the place.
we then went to the giraffe center – a place where one can get up close and personal with a special breed of giraffe that is almost extinct. if you put some grass in your mouth the giraffe will kiss you! it was fun. then we went to a japanese restaurant for some pretty good sushi. this weekend i am going with the same peeps to mombasa on the coast (indian ocean), so it should be a great weekend!
