InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, 16 December 1997.
Sandrine Loubassou

She explains that she was infected while in her mother's womb. Mum died six years ago so little Audrey lives with her father.

She looks pale. Her skin is covered with sores. She finds it hard even to talk and each effort she makes draws a little cry of pain. "I want you to ask your parents to prevent this from hapening to you," she tells her listeners.

Audrey and other HIV-positive children went around to various schools on World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) to make her peers aware of AIDS.

Sixteen-year-old Cedric also took part in the awareness sessions and Aline Bayonne, a nurse who accompanied the chldren, told his story for him.

"This young boy, who suffers from the sickle-cell disease, contracted the virus (the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV), which cases AIDS) through a blood transfusion," she said.

The sickle-cell disease is a hereditary blood disorder that leads to anemia and jaundice and people who suffer from it sometimes require transfusions. In Cedric's case, he "received blood from a member of his family who was HIV-positive," Bayonne explained.

The children's participation in the awareness sessions, organised mainly by the Regional Agency for AIDS Information and Prevention (ARIPS) here, was something new in Congo.

The children gave their testimonies not only in schools but also in other public places and the sessions received wide coverage on radio and television, so adults were able to see and hear them, too.

Dr. Berthin Kouendolo, president of the Regional Anti-AIDS Programme in Kouilou -- the southern region of which Pointe-Noire is the administrative capital -- saw the children's involvement as a means of enabling "parents, who are the people most exposed to this illness, to become aware and imagine the suffering of the orphaned and sick children they will leave behind".

The effect of the sessions on the children who attended them was visible. Some could not hold back their tears. Many said they had never before seen a child suffering from AIDS.

Taty Makosso Donald, a pupil at a private school here, said he had never before seen any concrete evidence of AIDS and was only now convinced that it really existed. "I am going to talk with my parents about it," he told IPS.

Jamie Bouetou had seen at least one person close to him die of AIDS but he had not been aware that "AIDS kills children too".

The organisers of the sessions said they were convinced that children have a key role to play in the fight against AIDS. "By involving children who have AIDS, we want other children to be informed of the severity of the epidemic and speak to their arents so that they really become aware of it," explained ARIPS president Regine Goma.

Some parents were totally against the children's involvement. They felt it could frustrate and traumatise both the healthy children and those with HIV.

Others felt dfferently. For Alphonsine Apendi, a nurse, there was nothing amiss "once these children and their families have been informed about the aim of the contact with the public, which is to educate people on AIDS prevention".

The HIV has been advancing relentlessly in Congo, as in other African nations. The rate of HIV-infection registered in paediatric services in the Central African nation is about 11.3 percent, while the rate in maternity services is around 9.8 percent.

This year the number of AIDS orphans in Congo has been estimated at 15,000. (END/IPS/SL-NRN/KB/97)

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