INTRO

CLARISSE
"HIV before 2000… I don't like to think about it."

IDA DJOSSE
"Back then, people said that having HIV was a death sentence."

DR MARIA
"Even today, I'm struck by the number of patients with advanced HIV."


CLARISSE
When I talk to you like this, it’s as though nothing happened. But it was difficult. I stared death in the face when I was tested in 1999. I felt that it was over for me, that I was going to die.

IDA DJOSSE
"I was tested in 2004 and told I had HIV. At that moment, it was the MSF counsellors who saved me. They told me: 'Mama, don't cry, be strong. We have free medicines and treatment.
You will take these medicines, and the virus in your body will go to sleep.
If you take the treatment properly, you will live a long life. You will have a full life. Your health will be normal.’”

DR MARIA
The situation today
is not comparable to 2002.
You have to imagine that, back then, there were nearly a million people living with HIV in DRC. Treatments were scarce and unaffordable for most people. That’s why we started providing care at the Kabinda outpatient treatment centre. Given the circumstances, we were quickly overwhelmed.

People were pouring in from everywhere in the city from morning to night. It was difficult for us to keep up.
"It's an illustration of the state in which patients arrive. It leaves an impression. This adult man weighs barely 25 kilos and is having his first consultation at the CHK [Kabinda Hospital Centre]. It's very difficult; since we launched the media campaign on access to ARVs [antiretrovirals], we are receiving more and more bedridden patients.
"I must admit that I am moved by these images. Looking back at myself as a young doctor 10 years ago, and the passion I already had in fighting HIV. To realise today that we still have a long way to go… it's very frustrating to see that patients still arrive in this condition.

The Kabinda Hospital Centre started as an outpatient treatment centre. Its’ priority was to put as many people as possible on antiretroviral treatment in the 2000s.

The facility evolved and, in 2008, it also started to offer specialised care for people with advanced HIV.

To cope with the growing needs, we had no choice but to double the bed capacity.

But even today, we sometimes have to set up tents and install additional beds for patients as the needs are enormous.

CLARISSE
To achieve the ‘Zero AIDS’ goal by 2030 donors must get involved.
We must continue to test people and raise awareness that there is a danger.

DR MARIA
It's so frustrating to see all the challenges that still lie ahead of us. Current efforts are not enough. Without an acceleration of these efforts – but a really big acceleration – we will not beat HIV by 2030.

TEXTS
In 2021, 14,000 people
died of HIV/AIDS
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

For the past 20 years, MSF has supported HIV care in 26 health centres and five hospitals in DRC.

Outside Kinshasa, MSF supports HIV care in six provinces of DRC.