ATSC

It has been awhile since I have talked about what exactly I do every week day 8am – 5pm, but recently, I can finally say that I LOVE my job! I know that love (especially in capital letters) is a strong word, but what I am doing right now not only keeps me from being absolutely and totally bored, but makes me feel like I have the opportunity to make a difference in peoples’ lives. To be honest, my job description is still not perfect or complete by any means, but every month I am given more and more responsibilities and my boss seems to really value my opinion and gives me positive feedback.

Over the past few months, I have been responsible for contacting the lodges/resorts/hotels in the area to ask them to ask their employees if they would be interested in voluntary HIV counseling and testing. If the employees respond positively (they all have so far) then one or two of the ATS-C counselors (Aconselhamento, Testagem, e Saúde – Comunitário) aka Community Counseling and Testing counselors and I go to the lodges and give an HIV/health session (around 30 minutes) and then test people. My role in all of this is to contact the lodges and speak to the managers who pretty much all happen to be South African or Zimbabwean and therefore, all speak English. I also organize all of the ATS-C activities and make sure we don’t forget to bring condoms to hand out after the tests and basically supervise the team. The pre-session counseling is usually given in the local language which means that I just sit there and nod my head while the counselors do their thing. Occasionally the pre and post-test counseling are given in Portuguese, but the counselors are trained to give it in the local language since only a small portion of the population speaks Portuguese.

Community Counseling and Testing is, at the present, only facilitating activities in the Vilankulo District, but eventually, ATS-C will spread to Inhassoro, Mabote, and Govuro (there are four districts in the northern part of the Inhambane Province where CARE works). CARE works through the hospital which means that the counselors were hired by the hospital and trained according to Ministry of Health (MOH) guidelines. If a person tests positive for HIV, they will be given a referral form to take to the hospital to have a CD4 count test taken. A CD4 count test determines if the person needs to start taking anti-retrovirals (ARVs) immediately or if their immune system is strong enough to delay treatment. One of my personal goals with this project is to determine if the people who test positive are actually making it to the hospital and if they are not, what are the barriers and how can we help them overcome them. Ideally, information that CARE collects will be given to the MOH and used in the 2009 HIV/AIDS report in Mozambique. In 2008, the prevalence rate of HIV in the Inhambane Province was reported to be 12%. Unfortunately, the data we have collected so far indicates that the HIV prevalence is higher than expected.

A random guy who wanted to be in the picture, one of the ATSC counselors, and me