Africa Journal Day 25 Tuesday May 17

Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Day 25
Lilongwe, Malawi

I spent most of today with Dr. Chris Brooks at his clinic about an hour and a half from here on Lake Malawi. He is the founder of Lifeline Malawi (www.lifelinemalawi.com), a medical outreach ministry for the under serviced areas of Malawi. He calls it "frontier medicine." Although he is expanding his clinic, he has been without lab or x-ray investigations. He has started HIV testing, and of the ones we tested yesterday, five out of eight were positive. One was a child, an orphan, brought in by her surviving grandmother. The grandmother’s five children and their spouses, a whole generation, are dead, probably from AIDS. She brought in two sick grandchildren, one with AIDS, contracted as an infant from her mother. The mother to child transmission rate is about 30%.

There are good treatments available now for AIDS. In Malawi, the Anti-Retro-Viral drugs (ARVs) are being offered to AIDS sufferers at government expense, as is the testing. Dr. Brooks has seen people at the brink of death with AIDS make remarkable recoveries. No one knows the long-term prognosis yet, but it is very encouraging. Without treatment, some fear a whole generation of labourers and parents will succumb. And in order to spare the next generation, a great deal of education and prevention needs to occur, right to the most remote communities and villages. Many traditional cultural practises surrounding puberty and sexuality need to be addressed. The Church has a major role, and opportunity, here.

Dr. Brooks has not seen depression in the patients he treats. Nor does he believe that fibromyalgia is a clinical entity here. People with chronic fatigue generally test positive for HIV infection.

I very much appreciated the time Dr. Brooks took to take me to his clinic, as well as sharing with me his passion for this work. He finds it so fulfilling, after a practise in Canada, to serve these needy people. Rather than retiring to a comfortable life at home, he is here, serving with enthusiasm and zeal—certainly a challenge to colleagues and other early retirees.