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6 June 2003 by Solveig Olafsdottir in Gaza province Antonieta Antonio Cumaio has nothing to do all day but wait for her father to come back from the fields. None of her neighbours wants anything to do with her. Her illness makes them uncomfortable and they do not want to be near her. Although she is only 28, she has been sick for five years. Finally, when she could no longer provide for her family by selling vegetables in the market, her three children were sent to relatives in Maputo and her father took her in. When he finally comes home, her father has little to offer. The harvest is bad this year. They live in Gaza, one of six central and southern provinces in Mozambique that have been badly hit by drought after suffering two consecutive years of flooding. According to a report from the national Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC), it is estimated that some 655,000 people are in need of food assistance in the provinces of Maputo, Gaza, Inhambane, Sofala, Manica and Tete. The report indicates that, although the drought is mostly to blame for the shortage of food, the underlying causes are much more complex. The impact of HIV/AIDS is regarded as one of the main factors, reducing the productive capacity of households at a time when additional human resources are needed to cope with the burden of looking for food, walking greater distances to collect water and taking care of sick family members. “When we go out to the communities with our health education and HIV/AIDS prevention messages, people say to us: ‘We may have AIDS, but how can we think about that when hunger is our real problem,’” says Antonio Messias, Red Cross health coordinator in Gaza province. Antonieta has HIV/AIDS. She is one of 56 people that volunteers from the XaiXai branch of the Mozambique Red Cross (CVM) visit on a regular basis. Twenty-one volunteers were trained in June last year to provide home-based care for HIV/AIDS-infected people and their families, and they have been carrying out their visits in the vicinity of XaiXai since October. Antonieta is happy when Virginia Arno, her care facilitator, comes twice a week to help her wash, clean, do housework and, last but not least, to talk about her condition and comfort her. But there is one thing Virginia cannot give her - food. The lack of access to food is a concern that the Red Cross volunteers in XaiXai face every day. Despite their efforts in trying to educate the population on how to prevent themselves from contracting HIV, they are constantly confronted by this pressing issue. Lack of food is a reality that Serafina Domingos faces every day. At 41, she has six children, all by different fathers. The youngest is only three years old. Serafina has a small plot of land, and has to live off whatever it yields. She has been sick for two years, and although she goes to the hospital to get medication, her condition is not improving. Even so, she has to work the fields to provide for the children and her grandmother who lives with them. “Hunger forces me to do the job, otherwise we would starve. When I feel strong enough, I go to the fields to work,” Serafina says. However, the harvest has been poor this year and she is often sick. Her grandmother tries to take care of her, but they are grateful for the visits from the Red Cross. Bernado Wamcasso used to earn good money to keep his family, working in the mines in South Africa. In addition he owned a nice plot at home in XaiXai. But when his health started to deteriorate in 1997, the mining company sent him home and he has been more or less bedridden since. It is tough on his wife, Isabel, who now has to work the fields, take care of her deaf son and one grandchild, as well as nursing her husband. “The situation is much worse this year because there were no rains. There is no mealie, no beans, no nothing,” says Bernado. The situation is also difficult to bear for Bernado’s home-based care facilitator, Lazaro Macaze: “I suffer when the clients suffer. I feel happy when we can assist, but I also feel bad when we have no food to offer and cannot help,” he says. At 13 per cent, Mozambique has one of the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the Southern Africa region, but there is a need to act now to curb the spread of the disease. Gaza province has the third highest infection rate with 17 per cent, and the Gaza Red Cross branch, with the support of the German Red Cross, has now developed a home-based care programme for five districts - Chokwe, Bilene, Guija, Chibutu and Manjakaze. Around 100 volunteers are to be trained over the next five years to care for 7,500 families, in addition to the 21 home-based care volunteers already working in XaiXai. “Mozambique is developing and the population has more interaction with other provinces and countries with higher HIV/AIDS prevalence. If nothing is done, the infection rate will surely increase,” says Rui Johane, the Red Cross HIV/AIDS coordinator in Gaza. “Food insecurity is prevailing in the province, and as we know, those who are living with HIV/AIDS and are sick need more nutrition. They are worse off than others because they cannot work, and have no means to support themselves. We are deeply concerned about this trend.” Related Links: Southern Africa Food Crisis Opinion piece: Southern Africa's axis of evils News story: Swaziland stalked by an "alliance of ills" News story: New reality requires new strategy in southern Africa Reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS Make a donation |
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