CAPEC alleviates impact of HIV/AIDS

The Cameroon Association for the Protection and Education of the Child, CAPEC, has been carrying out voluntary HIV screening with her “Mobile Clinic” team in Kumba and Konye Sub-divisions in Meme Division of the South West Region.

CAPEC has as objective to mobilise and empower 5,000 families (about 25,000 people) in Meme Division to work for the elimination of HIV/AIDS in their lives, families and communities. The CAPEC mobile clinic team is created to meet people at their various job sites since many of them do not have enough time to go to the hospital for their free screening. With the CAPEC PMTCT mobile clinic, the population is responding positively to free and voluntary testing of HIV.

This is expected to go a long way to alleviate the impact of HIV/AIDS in society. CAPEC has also organised person-to-person and door-to-door mobilisation, awareness and counseling as well as People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) local leaders to volunteer in the PMTCT programmes and also facilitate in the follow-up of lost cases. According to Mbiayamba Elvis, the Project Coordinator for Meme, CAPEC is coming up to add more force and values to what other partners and the State have been doing in the field of PMTCT of HIV/AIDS.

He said this exercise cannot be done by a single structure, organisation, doctor or hospital, but having many stakeholders on deck will enhance rapid and reliable results. “We often quote statistics that refer to millions of people. It is too easy to lose sight of the reality of individual lives and stories. No two persons have the same experience of HIV/AIDS, each life, each story, is different and they not deserve to be neglected,” Mbiayamba reiterated.