Global perspective Human stories

DR Congo: UNICEF chief, basketball star unveil new HIV/AIDS treatment centres

DR Congo: UNICEF chief, basketball star unveil new HIV/AIDS treatment centres

Dikembe Mutombo from a TV spot created by UNICEF and the NBA in 2006
The retired basketball great Dikembe Mutombo, along with the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), today unveiled two centres to improve HIV/AIDS treatment in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where more than 1 million people are living with the disease.

The retired basketball great Dikembe Mutombo, along with the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), today unveiled two centres to improve HIV/AIDS treatment in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where more than 1 million people are living with the disease.

Together with the medical technology firm Becton, Dickinson and Company, the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital and Research Center, a state-of-the-art facility named after the sports star’s late mother, launched two Centres of Excellence in the capital, Kinshasa.

The Immune System Monitoring Laboratory seeks to bolster the monitoring and treatment of people living with the pandemic, while the other, the Occupational Safety Centre for Health Workers, will train over 300 clinicians.

The new centres “are an important milestone in improving the quality of life for those who live with HIV/AIDS and in training new health-care workers to help prevent the spread of the disease,” said Mr. Mutombo, a former player in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

According to the World Bank, nearly 70 per cent of the almost 70 million-strong population is living on less than $1.25 a day, with half a million children under the age of five dying ever year from largely preventable causes, including diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria.

The DRC is one of Africa’s poorest nations, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman noted today, with “poverty, conflict and disease contributing to a public health crisis for the country’s most vulnerable people.”

She commended Mr. Mutombo for his commitment to his home country, calling him a “true friend of UNICEF” and noting that “his dedication for his home country is an inspiration to us all. Dikembe continues to give a voice to the voiceless people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

Ms. Veneman is currently on a five-day visit to the DRC, which will also take her to its volatile far-east region.