Medicine and Health in Africa: a Global Challange.
Forum Harambee.

The problem of health in Africa faced through an integral approach. This has been the focus of  the discussion promoted by Harambee last March 31, within the monthly Forum. Giovanni Mottini, president of Harambee Africa International and Paola Germano, doctor and coordinator of the DREAM project  of the S. Egidio Community against HIV, animated the talk on the base of their personal experiences.
“Solidarity and Professionalism are not very common in the development projects” stressed Mottini “We very often find research programmes realised in Africa but not for Africa”. Doctor Germano explained the Dream project which reached 65,000 patients in 10 African countries. “Our patients become themselves educators and this has a strong impact in such a contexts where illness means social exclusion”, said Germano. “For us, the patient and his own needs are at the centre of our actions which of course respect the sanitary programmes but that at the same time they involve the different aspects of life. We talk about a “process” which affects the under nutrition problem (no medicine has an effect without a good standard of nutrition), the cultural issue (the refuse of  the health assistance, the exclusion) and which allow patients to come back to their own belonging contexts.” If  figures say there are 22 millions HIV patients in Africa after 15 years of failed prevention politics the results of a “model” built on the field and focused on the “comprehension of the needs” are really encouraging.