Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - July 18, 1999
Christopher Matthews
"That's in our hands," explains Father Angelo D'Agostino, S.J., who runs the Nyumbani Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. "We get the children because they are abandoned at birth. That abandonment is really a fortunate state of affairs for the child. If they're breast-fed, then the percentage drops from 75 percent to 50 percent."
"Father Dag," as he is called, opened Nyumbani in 1981 when he saw so many HIV-positive children being turned away by other orphanages. Today, he is housing and caring for 70 such orphans, while getting daily medication, clothing and food to hundreds more who live in surrounding areas.
In treating, feeding, raising and cheering these kids, who range in age from newborn to 16, this Jesuit priest from America knows that he swims in a roiling sea of need.
"Sub-Sahara Africa has the highest density of AIDS cases in the world. In Kenya, there will be 150,000 HIV-positive orphans by next year. There might be another 200,000 who are not born HIV-positive, but since their mothers died of AIDS there's a stigma. They are discarded by their relatives. There is no facility to care for them."
Father D'Agostino reports that this deadly African epidemic, which is transmitted largely by heterosexual relations, shows no sign of abating. "The malnutrition and the general lifestyle, the prevalence of malaria and other diseases really cuts down on the life expectancy once a person gets HIV. TB is another killer." This explains why so many mothers die so soon after childbirth.
Father Dag, 73, believes that a small orphanage like his, which has a concentrated medical facility, oxygen equipment and an intensive care unit, is best for helping the children these mothers leave behind, either by extending the care itself or through Nyumbani's community-based program, which trains extended family members to provide it.
The latest testament to his success is a personal invitation he just received from the president of neighboring Tanzania to set up a Nyumbani there. With all the love and commitment they receive, however, the prognosis for such orphans is brutally predictable.
Nyumbani has no way to afford the high-priced drug cocktails available to those who are HIV-positive. Father Dag estimates such treatment would run up to $1,200 per month per child.
"Some chemists in Africa are threatening to synthesize the drugs," he speculates. "What would happen if such companies did manufacture and distribute them at an affordable price? Would the American companies sue them?"
"It's going to happen," he predicts, which will place the U.S. drug-makers in a moral pose that will be hard to defend. "They're going to really look like misers."
In the meantime, this kindly, thoughtful priest, who was an Air Force surgeon, a psychiatrist and refugee worker in past lives, raises the money he can for Nyumbani and gives his scores of kids the best, happiest lives possible. When one of his kids dies, he also does his best.
"We always have a funeral service and everyone participates. They have a strong religious foundation, and they know that when they die they are going to be at peace and not suffering anymore. We keep them very healthy and happy.
"You would never know, to visit the place, they were sick. It's not until the final weeks, when the virus gets the upper hand, that they crash."
Until the last, Father D'Agostino tries to keep the children's hopes up. "Our philosophy is, if they ask the question, we answer them honestly. But we are not telling them the brutal facts about what they are going to go through." Those wanting to contact the Nyumbani Orphanage can do so by mail: Box 21399, Nairobi, Kenya, or at its Web site: http://www.Nyumbani.com
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