In the lead up to World AIDS Day, 2008, on December 1, photographer Brendan Bannon is in Kenya and will be providing images every day of his travels with MSF throughout the region.

Day 3 - LOVE MEDICINE

“Sometimes what you need to give a patient is love. For two months little Steve was our fuel. He kept us going“, Dr Rodrigo told me.

I think  that In medicine, as in life, there are ordinary  relationships and extraordinary ones. Extraordinary ones teach us about our selves and connect us deeply to other people. They  change us as they remind us of each others humanity. It sounded to me like the relationship that was fused between young Steve, his family  and his team of doctors was  extraordinary.

Steve, at 12 years old, was facing death.

When steve came to the hospital he was sick. His first line ARV treatment had failed. Whatever medical interventions were tried seemed to be failing as well. Steve, at 12 years old, was facing death.

Dr. Rodrigo:
“For two months he was our fuel’, said Dr.Rodrigo. “He kept us going and now the medical me doesn’t understand what happened! When I look back, I ask myself : what did we do to make him better?”

“At the time I was trying to Phase into the stage where you let him die peacefully- then we started to get closer to him. We talked to him about his dreams…
The emotional me wants to believe that love was the treatment. The medical me dstill wonders what was that got him through and made him recover.

“I remember a couple of days  being fed up with work. T

hings weren’t working and I went and saw little Steve who is dying and he would give you a smile and everything was better.

“One day Helen, Steve’s tuberculosis doctor, told me  tshe was having a tough day but after seeing little Stevie’s smile, things looked completely different, somehow better. I felt jealous for not being there.”

Eventually he started to recover. We  saw he gained  a Kilo of weight, then three and so on. Every little weight gain was like a grain of hope. Helen would come and check him very early and then she wouldn’t be able to keep the good news. It kept us going like fuel for our souls.”

In here you need to win some battles from time to time, little Stevie is one of those.

Steve was put on second line ARV treatment and, after a short while, he started correcting a nurse who delivered his medicine.

“When a patient is correcting his nurse by telling her she is  not giving the right amount of drugs.

That is the sign that the patient is ready to take his medications alone !” Dr. Rodrigo said.

“In the end ,the magic was Steve. He found the will to follow his treatment.”

The point of Dr. Rodrigo’s story to me  is not that love will conquer all or that on it’s own a miracle. But I do believe, because I have seen it in my own life, that when love, compassion and curiosity are shared with a patient the patient can see a world that is bigger than the disease.
And they can summon the will  to live in the world that they see.
My mother was sick for years with Multiple Sclerosis. I took her to hundreds of doctors appointments.  Most of the time the news was grim. She would be told: “you are worse off than  the last time I saw you and  it’s likely continue to get worse.” Then she was told that it was vaguely possible that the steady March of  disease could be stalled at its current stage for a short period.
There was  one doctor, Dr. Phillips, who made the time to listen to her. He asked about her work and her family. Then he would tell her that he admired her courage and that if he could  ask God for  one miracle he would ask for her  recovery.
By then she couldnt walk. So I couldnt see her quicken her step…. But  I did notice that she would push  the wheelchair out of his office herself.

In the lead up to World AIDS Day, 2008, on December 1, photographer Brendan Bannon is in Kenya and will be providing images every day of his travels with MSF throughout the region.
Day 2 - A DAY OF CONTRASTS
Today was  a day of stark contrasts. It is incredible to see two  sides of a disease so seemingly different. One  harrowing and horrible the other colored by hope in the face of tragedy.

3 years old and HIV positive, suffering from menengitis. (Photo by Brendan Bannon)

In the district hospital I watched doctors and families gather around desperately sick children. Henry, 3 years old and HIV positive, was suffering at the moment from menengitis which left him unconscious. His mother, father and aunt were bedside  and consumed with  concern and anxiety.

Doctors and nurses rushed around him tending to other children equally sick. There were at least 2 children to  a bed- all with tubes inserted for feeding or breathing or intravenous fluids.

Eric an MSF doctor examined Henry’s eyes to see what damage the meningitis  had caused to his nervous system. The boys pupils responded  equally to the light, meaning that  the brain infection had not permanently compromised his nervous system. Chances for a good recovery were still high.

The eye exam showed that chances of good recovery from meninigitis were high (Photo by Brendan Bannon)

This news brought a brief moment of relief,  the family gathered  in  vigil around him.

In the afternoon I visited Clinton, a 12 year old HIV positive orphan who lives with his grandparents. After walking 5 km home from the hospital Clinton effortlessly climbed a few hundred meters of steep hill to his grandparents home.

Clinton walking home to his grandparents house (Photo by Brendan Bannon)

Clinton began treatment in 2003- 2 years before Henry was born. Five years later he is still strong enough not to need ART.

Clinton’s parents died within six months of each other from AIDS. They refused to be tested and never sought medical help. “My own son and his wife would not have died- but they refused to acknowledge this disease.” his grandfather said. Clinton contracted the virus from his mother. At the first signs of illness he agreed to be tested.

Although he is HIV positive, regular checkups and  treatment at the first signs of opportunistic infection have kept him strong. “ Now there is nothing I can’t do,” he told me.

Clinton sorting a collection of rusted nails. He wants to be an engineer when he grows up. (Photo by Brendan Bannon)

He also told me that he wants to be an aeronautical engineer. He sees planes flying overhead and  now he wants to build them. At one point he pulled a collection of bent and rusted nails from his pocket and began to sort and organize them.

“He is very practical and he does things practically. I think he could build airplanes someday,” his grandfather said.

His grandmother, understanding that these pictures would be seen around the world, had a message to share:

The first one (Clinton’s father) died because he did not go for the test.  Clinton agreed to go and he is surviving. So I think everyone should go for the  test. There  is goodness in testing… and the goodness is that I am still seeing Clinton. And I am happy!”

Clinton and his grandmother. (Photo by Brendan Bannon)

Clinton, the future engineer wanted to “ thank the people who design the drugs and deliver them. Without them I wouldn’t be here.”

“Without the drugs  this district would be almost empty now.” his grandmother added.

In the lead up to World AIDS Day, 2008, on December 1, photographer Brendan Bannon is in Kenya and will be providing images every day of his travels with MSF throughout the region.

DAY 1 - HOMA BAY

This is a photography blog about HIV/AIDS in Homa Bay, Kenya.
The idea is that everyday leading up to world AIDS day  you will have a chance to see life unfold along lake victoria in western Kenya.

Homa Bay, perched along the shores of lake Victoria is the  district center. It is a town of between 50-70,000 people.

In Kenya HIV prevalence is difficult to pin point.  Recent government reports put it at approximately 15% in this area.  Among pregnant women  the numbers are higher-22-24% are HIV positive.

Msf runs a program  here providing treatment to 13,000 patients. Roughly 8,000 of these people are  receiving lifesaving Anti retro viral treatment ( ART).

 Of that number there are 1,053 children on ART. Treatment for children remains a challenge. It is not well adapted to children and it is difficult to take. There is still poor identification and testing and parents remain reluctant to  having their children tested.

The numbers alone  are overwhelming but behind each number are thousands of individual human lives for whom  a positive diagnosis is a life changing event.

In the pictures that follow I will  bring you closer to the day to day reality here in Homa Bay, one town among thousands worldwide where the problems and challenges of HIV are being faced daily.

Fishermen in Homa Bay, by Brendan Bannon

In the words of Dennis Okinyi Oluoch a secondary student and former fisherman…..

Once someone has been infected  with the virus the whole family will be effected.
Here the men make thier living fishing and if the man gets sick the whole family suffers because he can not work.”

HIV transmission is linked to poverty. If there is a fisherman and he has money  he will give  the money or even fish to have sex with a local woman.
It’s like this: a friend of mine was a total orphan. Both parents died from AIDS when she was 17. At the time she was in secondary school.

She was the eldest and when her parents died many  friends and relatives ran away, they didn’t help her. She had younger siblings to  care for and no options for  a job. She found big friends to help. She was bold and would tell you her problems and offer you what ever you wanted  if you would help her. She was beautiful and what  they wanted was to sleep with her. She started getting sick and soon she died.”

Before the drugs were introduced very many people were dying.
Now with the drugs its hard to see people in town looking ill. If you walk along the lake you won’t wee one of these skinny people. Town folks who are positive can eat and will take their medicines.

There’s a lot of money from  fishing but it is used extravagantly. They spend  it on women.

Money is used as a weapon to win the heart. There is no true love on the lake only lust. If there is any love it is the love of money. Girls can’t fish and if you cant fish how do you get money?”