SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS orphans in South Africa get breast milk donated by moms in the US

This plane carries a precious gift for South African orphans whose mothers have died of AIDS-related diseases. Women in the United States have been donating breast milk and shipping it to orphans of the iThemba Lethu orphanage in Durban, South Africa. Professor Anna Coutsoudis, who runs the breast milk bank at the orphanage, said the nutrition and immune properties in breast milk are "absolutely vital" for the orphans, many of whom are immuno-compromised or HIV-positive. The project started when Missouri resident Jill Youse searched the web to find a place where she could donate her excess breast milk to, and came across the story of the iThemba Lethu orphanage. She contacted the orphanage, but was told it would be too expensive to ship out frozen breast milk to South Africa. But Youse was not a woman you say no to. She started the International Breast Milk Project, and has shipped two consignments of frozen breast milk to the iThemba Lethu milk bank so far, while also raising money to start more banks in Africa. The iThemba Lethu milk bank was created in 2001 when Anna Coutsoudis, a professor of paediatrics at Durban's University of Natal, was working with HIV-positive orphans and noticed one who was particularly malnourished. Coutsoudis asked a friend who was nursing her own child for a donation of breast milk, and saw an immediate improvement. iThemba Lethu means ''Our Hope'' in the Zulu language. With a grant from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the milk bank was born. UNICEF officials say the bank could be a model for South Africa, where anti-retroviral (ARV) drug treatment for HIV-infected mothers is only now being widely introduced. Coutsoudis says the bank provides babies with the important, immune-boosting power of mother's milk and prevents the transmission of HIV and other blood-borne diseases. "We know that children who are fed on formula are more prone to diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, ear infections. It damages their gut and just makes them, you know, more ill, so it is very important, also children who are breast fed have less allergies, they have less skin problems and we have seen wonderful differences in our children when we give them breast milk instead of formula," Coutsoudis said. ithemba Lethu's milk bank has won widespread praise as an effective, grass-roots response to the AIDS crisis in South Africa, where an estimated 5 million people, or one in nine of the population, are HIV-positive. The programme reaches across racial and economic lines in a country which, more than a decade after the end of apartheid, is both deeply polarised and increasingly overwhelmed by the extent of its AIDS crisis. Donors to the milk bank are mostly white. The recipients, infants who have lost mothers to AIDS or who have been infected with HIV sometimes during nursing, are primarily black. All donors in the US and South Africa are screened and their milk is pasteurised before it is given to the orphans. The milk from the bank is used mostly to feed the five AIDS-affected children the group cares for itself. When supplies permit, breast milk is distributed to other children's homes. Mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus -- during pregnancy, childbirth, or through breast-feeding -- is a painful part of South Africa's AIDS crisis and has led to some concern over ithemba Lethu's focus on breast milk. Other critics of the programme say that donating breast milk outside of the family runs against African traditions. But at Johannesburg's huge Chris Hani-Baragwanath hospital, the idea of safe milk banks got enthusiastic support from both new mothers and nursing staff. "It is humanity more than anything else. It is about ubuntu (empathy), the way I look at it. It is about helping each other in the difficult times that we are living in. It is about sharing what God has given us, and that is breast milk," said Nonhlanhla Monaheng, a consultant for new mothers at the hospital. According to analysts, the mothers of approximately three million children ages five and younger in sub-Saharan Africa have died of Aids-related illnesses. For more information on the project: www.breastmilkproject.com

ITN Source | November 29, 2006

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