MSF battles against AIDS in the heart Africa

A drab ocean of brown sheet-metal roofs. Dwellings of earth and brick ludicrously close to one another, interlocking in a labyrinth of muddy alleyways strewn with rubbish. This is the face of Kibera, a slum located in the southwest of Nairobi, and the biggest slum in Africa, a city within a city. Thirteen villages, clustered together in a crescent formation over an area three kilometres long and one kilometre wide, sheltering around one million people living in extreme poverty. The population density is one of the highest in Kenya: about 300,000 human beings share one square kilometre.

Bisected from west to east by a railway line, living conditions in the slum are a far cry from the sophisticated infrastructure found in the nearby wealthy areas of Nairobi. Kibera has no public health care facilities, sanitation system, electricity, water or roads. Following the sewers that trickle across the slum southwards, things do not improve. This is where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs its project fighting HIV/AIDS. As well as working through the three health clinics in the very heart of the slum, MSF also supports a specialised HIV/AIDS clinic within the Mbagathi District Hospital, to the east of Kibera.

MSF has proved that treating people successfully with antiretroviral drugs is possible even in very precarious settings. Yet there are still thousands of patients on the waiting list, dying because they do not have access to adequate treatment. Children figure high on this list. With no diagnostic tools and adapted treatment available for them, what their future will be?

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