Tim Shenk
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)
Cambodia has made dramatic progress in preventing and treating AIDS in recent years, according to Arlys Herem, a nurse practitioner with a Cambodian AIDS care organization that is supported by MCC.
The organization, Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei, provides home-based medical care to people with AIDS in Mongkol Borei, a rural district in northwestern Cambodia. Since 2001, when the organization started its work, life has fundamentally changed for local people with AIDS, Herem says.
"Seventy percent of our patients died in less than a year after we met them," she says, recalling 2001. "Now, it's very, very different."
In 2001, people in Mongkol Borei did not have access to HIV tests to determine whether they needed treatment before serious symptoms appeared. Most did not have access to basic treatments, such as antibiotics, until Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei provided them.
At the time, Herem says, she never dreamed that patients would soon have access to AIDS medications that could extend their lives for decades.
Today, a government-run AIDS clinic in Mongkol Borei district provides life-saving AIDS medications at no cost to patients. Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei continues to provide other health services to 468 AIDS patients, and most are healthy enough to work as rice farmers or in other local jobs.
According to Herem, these dramatic changes have come about through a government-led public health program that is supported by many international organizations. What has helped the most, Herem says, is an international campaign to lower the cost of AIDS medications in Cambodia and other poor countries.
"Those battles go on and they need to go on because the second-line drugs are still extremely expensive," Herem says.
Government-led HIV prevention campaigns have helped significantly. Today, Cambodia's HIV infection rate is probably lower than 4 percent, where it peaked in the late 1990s, Herem says.
Now that patients are able to live for decades with HIV, Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei is helping them manage what is essentially a chronic health condition. In order to stay healthy, they need to eat a nutritious diet, take medications correctly and take steps to avoid infections.
"We still see them at home, primarily to expand on the education they provide in the clinic," Herem says.
The organization, Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei, provides home-based medical care to people with AIDS in Mongkol Borei, a rural district in northwestern Cambodia. Since 2001, when the organization started its work, life has fundamentally changed for local people with AIDS, Herem says.
"Seventy percent of our patients died in less than a year after we met them," she says, recalling 2001. "Now, it's very, very different."
In 2001, people in Mongkol Borei did not have access to HIV tests to determine whether they needed treatment before serious symptoms appeared. Most did not have access to basic treatments, such as antibiotics, until Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei provided them.
At the time, Herem says, she never dreamed that patients would soon have access to AIDS medications that could extend their lives for decades.
Today, a government-run AIDS clinic in Mongkol Borei district provides life-saving AIDS medications at no cost to patients. Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei continues to provide other health services to 468 AIDS patients, and most are healthy enough to work as rice farmers or in other local jobs.
According to Herem, these dramatic changes have come about through a government-led public health program that is supported by many international organizations. What has helped the most, Herem says, is an international campaign to lower the cost of AIDS medications in Cambodia and other poor countries.
"Those battles go on and they need to go on because the second-line drugs are still extremely expensive," Herem says.
Government-led HIV prevention campaigns have helped significantly. Today, Cambodia's HIV infection rate is probably lower than 4 percent, where it peaked in the late 1990s, Herem says.
Now that patients are able to live for decades with HIV, Dhammayietra Mongkol Borei is helping them manage what is essentially a chronic health condition. In order to stay healthy, they need to eat a nutritious diet, take medications correctly and take steps to avoid infections.
"We still see them at home, primarily to expand on the education they provide in the clinic," Herem says.
1 comment:
Thank you, thank you, thank you,
on behalf of all Khmer people.
Long Live Cambodia!
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