BLANTYRE, May 18 (AFP) - With very little money, no drugs and facing a daily struggle to find food, Zex Thambo takes care of AIDS orphans in a township of Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries and among the hardest hit by the pandemic.
Five years ago Thambo, 57, along with other members of his community, opened up a small center in the Ndirande township not far from the economic capital of Blantyre, where every day they feed 300 children whose parents have died from AIDS.
About 85,000 people die of AIDS-related illnesses a year in this southern African country of 11 million.
Among the 300 orphans who come every day to the Tithandize center, about a dozen have fallen ill but the center cannot afford the anti-retroviral drugs needed to treat them.
"Our priorities are food and ARVs," says Thambo who has lived all his life in the township, Malawi's biggest.
Many of Ndirande's AIDS orphans remain in their homes with a relative following the death of their parents but others find themselves in the street with nothing.
Zeka, Ester, Agatha, Maria and George, aged between two and 12, are among the dozen children who live in a building set up behind a school at the AIDS orphans center.
The Tithandizde center has a budget of 6,000 kwachas (52 dollars/45 euros) a month, mostly from local donations. It also grows several hectares of maize which provides the bulk of the children's meals.
Last year, the center bought a house for 40,000 kwachas (348 dollars/296 euros) to help out more AIDS orphans but Thambo said he has yet to come up with the funds to renovate it.
Thambo complains bitterly that local politicians fund AIDS centers with handouts and that the government should have a more structured approach to allocating support.
Meanwhile, community leaders are trying to stop the ranks of AIDS orphans from growing by holding information meetings on the disease, many of which are attended by traditional chiefs to underscore the importance of the issue.
But in a country where AIDS remains a taboo subject, prevention and AIDS awareness remain an uphill task, with many notions about the disease still finding believers.
"Some think they have been bewitched. Others believe condoms can be a source of AIDS. Others believe AIDS comes from women who catch it when to go to hospitals," says Thambo.
AIDS has cut life expectancy to 36 in Malawi, which last week launched its first programme to provide free antiretroviral drugs, hoping to reach tens of thousands of HIV sufferers in the next five years.
President Bakili Muluzi, who is to step down from office this year after serving two terms, sought to erase the stigma attached to AIDS by publicly admitting in February that his brother had died of the disease.
"The fight against the killer disease could only succeed if we break (the) barriers of silence, stigma and discrimination," he said, adding that he himself had undergone an HIV test, the result of which had been "good news."
On Thursday Malawi holds its third multi-party elections since the end of autocratic rule ten years ago.
The economy and food security -- after the worst famine in 50 years hit the country in 2000 -- have dominated the run-up to the elections.
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