Updates

June 6, 1997

Malakia Clinic in Lilongwe, Malawi is managed by Numeri Gladstone Abisai (N.G.A.) Chonde. His wife Alice is a state registered nurse at this clinic besides being a certified midwife. Malawi is one of Africa's poorest and most overcrowded countries and conditions are deteriorating.

The clinic is very small and the only workers are Gladstone Chonde, wife Alice, a receptionist and a watchman. In the five years they have been in operation they have treated over 130,000 people. They often treat 150 people per day. As the rainy season approaches and the mosquitoes multiply malaria cases increase; so do the patients.

The diseases they commonly deal with:


Alice Chonde (left) at Malakia Clinic

One does not have to be in Africa very long to learn about the AIDS epidemic that is sweeping through and killing men and women from approximately age 18 through the mid-forties. In the capital city of Harare in Zimbabwe some 120 people are buried every day. Seventy percent are from some manifestation of AIDS.

In talking with Alice Chonde she tells us that she has lost a brother and sister to AIDS. One of the rising new problems for Africa, which needs no new problems, is the proliferation of AIDS orphans. The Chondes help support the orphaned children of her brother and sister and another relative.

They need many common drugs. Gladstone tells me that they often run out of common medicines and patients end up dying from pneumonia and diarrhea.


Gladstone Chonde consulting
patient at clinic

These are unnecessary deaths that could be prevented if ample medicine was available.

Many are turning to witch doctors who are particularly promising a cure for AIDS.

The Medical Council of Malawi oversees their work and the District Medical Office comes to check on them regularly.

The Chonde's would like to help many more people and CAN with your help! We would like to ship commonly used drugs that are in very short supply.


Reception area at Malakia Clinic

As soon as my wife and I return from Africa we are going to start a new project to provide the Malakia (named after the book of Malachi in the Bible) Clinic with life-sustaining help. If you would like to join in our efforts to save lives in Malawi please let me know by clicking here and writing to me.

The Chonde's address is:

N.G.A. Chonde
Malakia (Pvt) Clinic
P.O. Box 30705
Lilongwe 3
Malawi
Africa