HIV/AIDs awareness team in receives training in Lakes State
By Manyang Mayom
April 27, 2010 (RUMBEK) – Mary Immaculate Hospital, in Mapuordit payam of Yirol West of Lakes state has offered training to a team of ten people, to help carry out HIV and AIDs awareness campaign in the community, each of them equipped with a bicycle as a means of mobility.
The 2-days training that started on Saturday April 24th and concluded on Sunday April 25th was organized by the newly established Mapuordit ART/VCT Centre.
Mr. Maruf Barnabas and Ms Judith Agwer are the team leaders of the ART/VCT Centre at Mapuordit.
In an email to Sudan Tribune, Mr. Maruf described the team that received training as “Community Mobilizes” explaining that they will be involved in bringing about “HIV and AIDs awareness to and among the community”.
The training equipped the community mobilizers with knowledge about HIV and AIDs that they are to share with members of their respective communities, to whom they will reach easily with the bicycles they received at the end of the training. These mobilizes are charged with the responsibility to identify cases of chronic illness and especially Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) among community members and to report these cases to the ART/VCT centre at Mapuordit hospital.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, the Hospital Director, Dr. Rosario Iannetti, thanked World Health Organization (WHO) for funding the ART/VCT centre, despite its remoteness from Rumbek the state capital of Lakes state. Dr. Rosario further said that, there were private donors who will help build permanent structures for the ART/VCT Centre beginning next month but he decline by not releasing detail of which organization could take work.
The closing ceremony was also marked by prayer presided over by Evangelist Tito Taban, a Clinical Officer on Internship at the Hospital. Quoting from St. John Gospel, chapter 10 Verse 10, Pastor Taban described HIV and AIDs as “devil”, coming “to steal, kill and destroy.” The pastor said that if one gives up risky emotional behavior and has a reference to God, the devil can be prevented.
The send off occasion was attended by different heads of departments at Mapuordit Hospital, among them, Dr. Paola, a Medical Officer and Christine of TB/Leprosy but state government officials did not show up.
Mary Immaculate Hospital, Mapuordit, is a Rural Hospital in Yirol West County of Lakes state, belonging to the Catholic Diocese of Rumbek (DOR) operating since CPA was not signed in 2005.
(ST)