I arrived back in the UK yesterday after spending an amazing 8 weeks in Livingstone, Zambia.

Zambia is a land-locked south central African country and has a popultion of approximately 11,261,795 (jul 2005). It has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, and life expectancy is a mear 38years. The HIV rate was estimated to be about 16.5% (in 2003) in the whole of Zambia, but is probably a lot higher in Livingstone due to its proximity to the borders of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana thus increasing traffic-it is known to have a high level of prostitution.

Livingstone General Hospital is split over two sites, which represent the old divide between black and whites! I spent most of my time at Batoka hospital on Bindi ward, which is the childrens ward. The main conditions I came across were malnutrition, HIV related infections including TB, suspected malaria (but not many cases were confirmed), and pneumonia. It's absolutely heart breaking to see the malnourished kids fighting for their lives, and seeing the number of children that die is astonishing. The hospital is so severly under-equiped its shocking. On my second day in the hospital I took part in a resuscitation of a 2month old baby where the only resus bag on the ward failed to form a seal over the babies mouth, there were no guedel of naso-pharyngeal airways-not to mention adrenaline or defib pads! This is a problem, but what shocked me the most was watching a lady force feed her malnourished child by holding the childs nose and pouring milk into the mouth from her own palm as the child was coughing and spluttering. The children are weak enough and the last thing they need is to inhale the milk and get a chest infection-which is what happens to alot of the malnourished children. These mothers cannot afford beakers for their children to feed themselves-they drink out of their mothers hands or rusty pans, it certainly makes you feel guilty when you have a bottle of mineral water in your pocket. Another surprising thing is the lack of medications they have-there are no anti-emetic or anti-diarrhoeals in the hospital and the children all have their pills crushed up into a drink as there are no suspensions. It's amazing how much we take for granted in the UK!

The research into HIV incidence and knowledge that is to be carried out in Livingstone General, Maramba clinic, Linda clinic, Libuyu clinic and Dambwa clinic all in the province of Livingstone was commenced only two days before I left but will continue until we have 1000 participants. We are still waiting for approval from the directors of the local clinics to commence the research in all four clinics, so we have only started data collection within the hospital. This had a very positive effect on people. A number of people that filled in the questionnaire for me asked to have a HIV test that day, and actually had one! It was very encouraging.

I hope that we can fundraise enough money to make some small improvements to the area.

I will try to load up photos as soon as possible!