Extra-Time

MSF Staff in Joburg

The World Cup spirit is felt everywhere here in Khayelitsha! Since I arrived a year ago from Brazil to work for MSF in this impoverished township near Cape Town, I have never seen the patients so proud as today! They come to the clinic wearing their yellow and green Bafana Bafana jerseys, so excited about their national team playing in the opening match today in Africa’s first ever and their very own World Cup. Football is the most popular sport in Khayelitsha and you can see children kicking a ball on almost every street corner! This sport is so central to these communities.

I often feel at home here, given the similarities between my country, Brazil, and South Africa. On Wednesday, we had a huge “vuvuzela break” during the lunch time. You couldn’t hear anything else but the blaring sound of vuvuzelas! Everybody keeps on asking: “Can you feel it?!” The excitement and patriotism of our patients really resonate through the sound of vuvuzelas!

In Africa alone, 500,000 children died because of AIDS in 2005. And today, we know that millions of African babies won’t live to see their second birthday. It’s a sad reality that none of us should forget. Nonetheless, the great sport event that kicks off today is a good opportunity to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS not only in South Africa but over the world as well!

Even if Bafana Bafana do not win the title, they will have proved how much energy people in this country can dedicate to a cause. I believe South Africa is making all possible efforts to win the battle against HIV/AIDS epidemic and this is really impressive. In Khayelitsha alone, we have 14,500 patients on antiretroviral treatment for HIV/Aids and hope to finish the year with 20,000 patients. The success of this township in its fight against the disease has been made possible thanks to the concerted effort of South Africans but also because of additional funds received from outside sources such as Global Fund. The concern now is that if funding dries up, these successes will be reversed and maybe the situation will worsen again.
South Africans have a burning passion inside them that can produce incredible changes. The World Cup has just highlighted this for me. I wish them all the best in keeping that passion alive through this long walk they have embarked on.

Yours truly,
Dr. Carolina Malavazzi Galvão

P.S. I am supporting Brazil and South Africa and will be very happy if one of my favourites win the trophy this year.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has been running an HIV/AIDS programme in Khayelitsha in partnership with City of Cape Town health authorities since 2000.

“Truly speaking, the little I know about morality, I learnt it on football pitches.”   French philosopher and Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, Albert Camus.

In four days time the sound of a whistle and crisp thud of a boot on a football will herald a month when the world’s eyes are fixed on South Africa.

In the coming weeks, billions of people will watch the spectacle of the much anticipated FIFA World Cup 2010, held for the first time in its 80 year existence in Africa.

A group of HIV-positive women in Epworth, one of Zimbabwe's poorest townships, decided to form a soccer team and to compete in tournaments. Photo: Joanna Stavropoulou/MSF

For the most part the global television audience of over 300million will be focussed on what happens on the 10 football pitches around South Africa and celebrating the winning teams.

But Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders and other organisations want the world to see the full picture. While the unifying power of football is celebrated 1,4million people are still dying needlessly of HIV/AIDS each year in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of these deaths could be averted by increased access to antiretroviral therapies (ART) and a right to treatment.

MSF wants to remind the world that the HIV/AIDS crisis is not over.

MSF teams are present in several countries of the Southern African region and provide assistance, treatment and care in numerous communities affected by HIV/AIDS and its deadly associate-disease, tuberculosis.

During the following six weeks, this blog will give people living with HIV/AIDS, MSF doctors, nurses, lay counsellors and football supporters the opportunity speak out about this reality while the world’s media and competing nations focus on the football matches.

The world has witnessed the remarkable achievements in the fighting HIV/AIDS during the last 10 years which saved the lives of millions in developing countries through the scale-up of treatment and care for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Over 4 million people in developing countries now have access to life-saving ART – an incredible medical feat. However all these efforts are not enough as 9,5million more people in the developing world who are need of ART but are still on the waiting list for access.

But a treatment funding deficit will condemn these millions of people living with HIV/AIDS to death.

These millions of people are almost all entirely dependent on donor countries and institutions like the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, in order to survive. But there has been a perceptible shift among donor countries in the G8 away from promises they made to keep up with long-term commitments to fund ART for people living with HIV/AIDS.

So, what we are seeing now is t that the much anticipated happy and normal full time that life prolonging funded ART would have brought is now under threat.

All members of the team called ARV Swallows are MSF patients and receive antiretroviral treatment at the Epworth Polyclinic, where MSF treats almost 7.000 HIV-positive patients a year. Photo: Joanna Stavropoulou/MSF

The effect of a donor retreat on funding the HIVAIDS fight is like having the referee blow his whistle to stop the World Cup final match halfway through. It would cause an outrage,with nations and people up in arms over the match being stopped at halftime. But the sad fact is when donors and the rich nations start turning off the HIV funding tap off – an action that will result in the premature and preventable death of millions of people needing immediate treatment for HIV/AIDS – it happens with little or no reaction or outrage. This is not acceptable.

We call on the world to protest against lives being lost because poor nations cannot afford treatment. .

By reading this blog and contributing your views, you can take a stand in support of universal access to treatment and care for ALL people living with HIV/AIDS. By doing this you’ll stand in support of giving people in developing countries living with HIV/AIDS a sporting chance. The world needs to demand Extra-Time in the deciding match where scoring for treatment, saving the lives of people and beating HIV/AIDS is the ultimate goal. Let the provision of funded and scaled-up antiretroviral treatment and saving millions of lives be the winner, then only will the world triumph.

ABOUT EXTRA-TIME!

Extra-Time! is an internet blogging experience with first-hand accounts and stories of field workers, staff and patients of the international humanitarian medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), gathered and presented during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, from June 7th to July 14th, 2010.

With Extra-Time! MSF aims to provide the worldwide audience with an alternate view on the first FIFA World Cup hosted in Africa and to chronicle the positive stories of perserverence in the Southern African region’s struggle to fight the dual epidemics of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

In the coming weeks Extra-Time! will include narratives, photographs and short videos from countries where MSF field workers provide care to people living with HIV and tuberculosis including Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and as well as other places in the world.

Information on HALFTIME!, an MSF event in the form of one-day soccer tournament involving people living with HIV as well as MSF which will be hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 2nd, will also be featured. HALFTIME! is an initiative to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the need to keep up international funding for antiretroviral treatment in developing countries.

DISCLAIMER
The opinions expressed in the Extra-Time! blog are those of the authors or the persons interviewed and can not be considered or quoted as MSF’s official position on the matters concerned.