Dr Leonard Okello
|
Dr Leonard Okello is the Ugandan head of ActionAid's HIV/Aids work and is leading the agency's team at the International Aids Conference. He is also an Aids widower bringing up three daughters following his wife's death.
My day starts when most dads are nicely cuddled up in their beds.
As early as 5am I am up to check on my two daughters who are eight and nine years old. My eldest daughter is HIV positive. I am a single parent.
Meetings like the 15th International Aids Conference here in Bangkok offer some source of hope.
But we must be true to each other in consolidating the strategies that have worked, be frank with each other, and forge meaningful partnerships as we respond to the vicious epidemic.
I have known HIV when not so many people were free to talk about it as is happening today.
Family tragedies
 |
Since the conference opened on Sunday I have walked to almost every stall offering information on treatment.
|
My dear wife died on 9 May 1999. Two weeks later we buried her two sisters, who both died from Aids. The following week we buried my wife's brother.
I have since buried my two brothers, two sisters, two aunts and two uncles. I have a brother whose health continues to deteriorate because he has Aids.
Since the conference opened on Sunday I have walked to almost every stall offering information on treatment so that I have the most current information to benefit my daughter Smiley who is on anti retroviral drugs (ARVS).
It's amazing what advances are being made. There is even a serious discussion on vaccines.
But the question that remains hanging is when these ARVs will become accessible to all, in line with the conference theme of access to all.
Trying to understand
I have made a personal commitment to understand the disease and do everything possible to improve the quality of life of my daughter and the many others I am in contact with.
|
We seem to know the answers to the problems of the epidemic but are skating around them, not hitting the answer.
|
The first time ARVs came to Uganda, I was paying more than US$1,000 a month. The prices have since come down - thanks to the international pressure on the pharmaceutical companies.
However, the price of ARVs to this day remains beyond the reach of many Ugandans, even the middle classes.
The noble initiative by the World Health Organisation to get 3 million people on ARVs by year 2005 will remain a dream unless there is movement in ensuring sustainability, expansion of delivery of treatment, poverty reduction and overcoming the inequalities that we see in our everyday life.
The challenge calls for a committed leadership, at all levels, prepared to do business differently and putting people living with HIV and AIDS at the centre of any response.
Above all we will need to put women and women's rights issues in the centre of this fight.
Frustration
My greatest frustration at this conference has been in the leadership front.
We seem to know the answers to the problems of the epidemic but are skating around them, not hitting the answer.
I have openly expressed my feelings at all sessions I have been to.
The war we are in calls for action packed political action and not more commitments.
The HIV and Aids problem will only be won if world leaders from George W Bush of the US to the president of Tuvalu with 12,000 citizens make political decisions to mobilise citizens and resources to fight the epidemic and deliberately build capacity at all levels in all countries.
These leaders need to put their flags aside in favour of the war against Aids. I look forward to that day.
~RS~a~RS~International~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~14~RS~){kind=small}
One-Minute World News
News services
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
![Boy practising Capoeira [Pic: Mozambican orphan Irenio]](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44276000/jpg/_44276211_irenio_capoeira6666.jpg)
