Dr. Agnella (Aggy) Chingwaro: Fighting HIV With Faith And Medicine

A five-day trek, a river that swallows missteps, and a video call that saves a mother and baby—this is what frontline HIV care looks like in Papua, Indonesia. We sit down with Dr. Agnela “Iggy” Chingwaro, an infectious disease physician from Zimbabwe, whose work braids medical expertise with faith, cultural humility, and stubborn hope. Her story exposes the hard truths behind late testing, the fear of national registration, and the maze of more than 300 local languages that shape how people understand illness, trust, and treatment.

We unpack the crucial difference between HIV and AIDS, why “undetectable” means suppressed rather than cured, and how that nuance can make or break adherence. Dr. Iggy contrasts Africa’s evolving HIV response with Papua’s current challenges, where stigma keeps many away until opportunistic infections like TB and meningitis take hold. She details how government-supplied antiretrovirals, TB, and leprosy drugs still need community bridges—portable diagnostics, trained local educators, and clinics willing to meet people where they are. You’ll hear how her team trains traditional midwives to screen pregnant women, uses telemedicine to coach emergency care, and partners with pilots and pastors to reach mountainside villages.

The conversation turns deeply human: the adoption of a child orphaned by AIDS, the refusal of ambulance drivers to transport patients due to fear, and the practical ways to dismantle myths about transmission. We also shine a light on the “forgotten generation”—youth facing rising HIV rates alongside alcohol and drug abuse—and the vision for a safe, youth-friendly center that offers counseling, education, and dignity. This is global health at eye level: compassionate, persistent, and built on trust.

If this moved you, help us grow the impact: subscribe, leave a rating, and share with a friend. Got thoughts or want to support Dr. Aggy’s work? Email abovethenoise24@gmail.com and join the conversation.

#HIV;  #AIDS;   #Papua  # Indonesia 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:40 Journey From Zimbabwe To Papua
• 5:20 Calling, Faith, And Becoming A Missionary
• 12:38 HIV In Africa Versus Papua
• 19:23 Testing Barriers And Stigma
• 22:53 HIV Versus AIDS Explained
• 27:03 Costly Late Care In Remote Terrain
• 31:13 Women, Children, And Contact Tracing
• 38:33 Reaching Remote Villages By Air And Foot
• 45:03 Training Local Midwives And Telemedicine
• 50:23 Adoption, Dignity, And Ending Myths
• 58:13 Building Community Health Capacity

Transcript

Grantley Martelly: 0:08

Welcome to Above the Noise, a podcast at the intersection of faith, race, and reconciliation. And I'm your host, Grant ley Martelly. So welcome back to Above the Noise. It's my honor today to welcome a friend that I met uh just this year. Her name is Dr. Agnella Chingwaro, and she is uh serving in the country of Indonesia, and her story is very powerful. Um, I think you're gonna love it. It's it's gonna be encouraging and inspiring the work that she's doing. Welcome, Dr. Aggy, to our podcast.

Dr. Aggy: 0:54

Thank you.

Grantley Martelly: 0:55

So introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us a little bit about you and your family and what you do so that our audience can get to know you before we get into the work that you do and the ministry that you do.

Dr. Aggy: 1:07

Thank you so much for having me today. My name is Agnella Chengwaro. And uh I was born and bred in Zimbabwe in southern Africa, and I'm the youngest of nine with nine siblings.

Grantley Martelly: 1:21

Are you married?

Dr. Aggy: 1:22

I am married to a Papuan Indonesian. My husband is Papuan.

Grantley Martelly: 1:27

And how do you have any kids? Do you have any children?

Dr. Aggy: 1:29

Yes, we do. I'm a grandmother.

Grantley Martelly: 1:32

A grandmother, okay. Yeah.

Dr. Aggy: 1:34

I have uh I have uh one granddaughter, Anaya.

Grantley Martelly: 1:37

Great, thank you. So how did you get to Indonesia from Zimbabwe?

Dr. Aggy: 1:44

It started um during the HIV uh epidemic in in Africa. So we were working in the government. That's when we were asked to also go to the churches. And I'm a Lutheran. Being a Lutheran, the Lutheran Church has uh a lot of hospitals from where I come from in Zimbabwe. We have uh Lutheran hospitals, and then we were working with the Lutheran World Federation doing HIV outreach programs and helping people living with HIV. And then from there, uh, that is when we started to encourage the church board to have infectious diseases control clinics in each and every church facility, church hospital. And then from there, we started growing and I started going from one country to the other, working in the same mission with the same organization as well, the faith-based organization. Because my country is a Christian-dominated country, and we have a lot of churches, and in those churches, there were a lot of people infected with HIV, and there were a lot of deaths being recorded. So we needed to break the silence from within the church. So that's how I started. Um, and then from there I went to Botswana, and I was also working with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Botswana. So that is when my my bishop by then, Bishop Reverend Cosmos Moenga the Late, when he went to the meeting in German with the United Evangelical Mission, is the mission partners. That is when they met the bishop from Papua, from the Evangelical Church in Papua, and they were talking about the HIV issues in Papua and in other mission partners. So when my bishop um was retelling the story of how I managed to handle the HIV case, cases in in the church, that is when the bishop from Papua, Reverend Bishop Pendeta Yemi Macrae, that is when she also asked if my bishop could send me to Papua also and maybe help them with the issue. So when my bishop came back from Germany, from Wuppertown, and then he was asking me if by any chance I see myself working in Papua Indonesia, and by then I didn't even know where Papua is. So I had to Google Papua Indonesia, and um what I saw, I was like, okay, how did HIV get to this part of the world? So I was so curious. At first it was curiosity that drove me to Papua, and I was only told it's uh it's uh 3 ATM, and for me it was okay, and then I I signed up for that, and that's when I came here to to Papua. I was with the uh Evangelical Christian Church in Papua, that is called the Gika E, meaning in Indonesia it is Greja Christian Injil Ditana Papua.

Grantley Martelly: 5:00

Thank you for that introduction and how you got to Papua New Guinea. So where did you get where did you begin your medical training?

Dr. Aggy: 5:07

Uh in 1999.

Grantley Martelly: 5:11

Where's mine? Pardon me?

Dr. Aggy: 5:15

In Zimbabwe.

Grantley Martelly: 5:16

In Zimbabwe.

Dr. Aggy: 5:20

Yes.

Grantley Martelly: 5:20

So you became a doctor in Zimbabwe. You were working there, and then you came over as a as a doctor to Indonesia. Were you always in family practice or were you in infectious disease?

Dr. Aggy: 5:31

Infectious diseases.

Grantley Martelly: 5:33

Infectious diseases.

Dr. Aggy: 5:35

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly: 5:36

Tell us a little bit about your faith journey because as you said in your introduction, you're working with uh Christian organizations that brought you to from Zimbabwe to Botswana to Papua. And so tell us a little bit about your faith journey.

Dr. Aggy: 5:52

Yeah. Uh I was raised by a very, very traditional Lutheran family. My my parents were very, very traditional Lutherans. And from there, the way we were raised was mainly, and I I used to see my parents um helping other people and always doing the, you know, in Zimbabwe, in where I come from, in Mashona Land Central, there are times when we have drought, where there's no rain at all, and there will be shortages of food. And my great my great-grandparents were farmers, so it it it was passed on to generations up to my father. So they are also farmers. They were also farmers. And uh whenever they had food and during the drought uh period, they would share their food with other people. But they would not just go and dish out the food to the communities. They will invite them and share the word of God. They pray together. After that, they will share the food. It really encouraged me also to do that. And at times my mom would be busy doing some other things, and then I'll be helping my my grandfather to do that, and and my ma my my my dad will be helping him also to do that. And during that same process, some women would bring their malnourished children, very sick children, you know. And how were we going to help them? Usually they would have diarrhea, and then my grandmother would say, just boil some water and put six teaspoons of sugar and two teaspoons of salt for dehydration, and then you put in a in a liter bottle and you you give them. So that gave that uh sprouted the passion in me to help other people, just by uh doing the sugar and salt solution for dehydration. So I felt very proud each time I would go and follow up, like, how is your baby today? Is is your baby still having diarrhea? They said, no, after giving them the sugar and salt solution, it just stopped and they're doing much better. So it it encouraged me also to do more, to wanted to do more. So that's when my grandfather said, I pray that one day you'll become a doctor. And then I fulfilled my great-grandfather's wish.

Grantley Martelly: 10:04

That is a great legacy to be passed on to you and to plant that seed in you to become a doctor, the example of your parents in serving others and finding that simple solution to a problem that is all over the world, you know, the sugar and salt solution to help children with diarrhoea can save so many lives. So did you ever did you ever think about becoming a missionary? Or even when you came to Papua, did you see yourself as a missionary or you were just coming as a doctor to serve for a little while?

Dr. Aggy: 10:36

Not at all. I never, I never saw myself as a missionary. But when I was working before I came to to Papua, that is when I realized that if I remain within the government uh shell, I would not be able to reach out to more people. So it made me want to break away from being a civil servant into a missionary. Because when whenever we go to the church facilities, you find a lot of people they will be there as compared to the government facilities. Because they knew when they go to the church facilities, that's when they are going to get the help, be it with food, be it with clothing, whatever shelter. Even in during disaster times, the church will be in the forefront, especially uh the Lutheran World Federation and other church organizations, the the Christian council churches, you know, they'll they'll they will be in the forefront. During those times, the church had an upper hand in gathering a lot of people, whether they have problems or not. So that's what that's when I made a decision that no, I think I should come out of this shell of working in one institution and go on a broader um practice working as a as a missionary.

Grantley Martelly: 12:01

When you came to Papua, then you were you had already made that transition to be a missionary because you were you started working with a church organization back in your home.

Dr. Aggy: 12:12

When I came to Papua, that's when I emerged myself into becoming a missionary. That's when I I found the real meaning of being a missionary.

Grantley Martelly: 12:22

What did you find that that meaning to be when you got to Papua?

Dr. Aggy: 12:27

The situation that um I've been working with in different parts of of Africa is totally different from here. And the approach that we used to do in Africa is totally different from here. So in Papua, there are so many aspects that we look at. It's either it's emotional, it's political, you know. So they are very sensitive. And I would always wanted to use um the the faith approach. And Papua is not only Papua where you you have the Christian community, it's a multi-denominational community. There are so many faith denominations here, so it's very difficult. So it made me strengthen my practice. Like I'm focusing on being a missionary, and uh I'll be working mainly on on uh different uh faith denominations. How am I going to do this? Because I'll be facing the the Indonesia is an Islamic state, and it is Hindus, it is it is uh Christians and you know other denominations. So and all those denominations, they are also being faced with HIV. And when we talk of HIV, it is no culture, it is no language, it is no faith, it is it is no race, no color, no language. So all those that are infected, I needed to embrace them in order to be able to tackle the problem. So that's when I rooted myself into becoming a missionary. How do I work within the Islamic community? How do I collaborate within the Hindu? So Papua really strengthened my mission as a as a missionary here, that yes, I'm going to be a missionary.

Grantley Martelly: 14:24

So let's talk a little bit about the AIDS epidemic and the AIDS situation, because uh that is your that is your specialty that where you're working. As we begin, give us a comparison between the the AIDS epidemic in Africa and then what you found when you came to Papua. Was it similar, was it different, and how is your work either similar or different from what you were doing back then in the AIDS community?

Dr. Aggy: 14:51

Yeah. Um thank you. It's it's very different in the sense that um in Africa, we when we talk of HIV, our people quickly understood it. And they quickly realized that we were perishing. The people were dying, and we would speak the same language and understand each other. And they would come forward. And of during the early days of HIV and AIDS, there was a lot of stigma, but when our people got more education on that issue, they quickly understood it and they quickly changed their way of living. For example, in my own culture, when a man dies, he leaves behind a wife. And that woman, that wife, they might have paid a full bride price and they have children, and the the family from the deceased man would not allow the woman to go back to her own village. They would arrange for somebody to remarry that woman. So it went on and on and on and on. So the moment there's an inheritance, even marriage inheritance from my own culture, a lot of people were dying. Because the widow will be infected with HIV. And they find a replacement from within the family or from within the extended family to inherit, to remarry that woman, so that she doesn't go away with the wealth from the deceased. And then within two years, that same man will die again. And that same woman would want to be a children for the new husband, and that child would automatically die again. So we realized that this was becoming a problem, and we addressed it, and the people understood that. So when I came to Papua, it was a different, it it is still a different issue that we have over 300 languages here in Papua. Even in Jaipura, there are a lot of languages. You go from one district to the other, there's a different language. So although they speak Indonesian, but they're different languages, different culture, different beliefs. So it's very difficult to penetrate in those different beliefs and different cultures as compared to Africa, where they have uh they can be Shona speaking people with different dialects, but they are Shona people. But in Papua, they can be Papua people, but with different languages, different culture, different everything. So it it was building a very big wall, and it is still a very huge uh difference in order to be able to tackle the HIV issue. So the main difference is when we are talking of HIV in purple, we have to have a certain type of approach. You can't just say, Yes, you are here, I'm testing you for HIV, and because I'm suspecting you this. Because they they will feel offended. Like, why would you say I have HIV? Why would you want to test me for HIV? And then the next thing they would some some of them would say, I don't have HIV because I don't have multiple sexual partners. I am sick because maybe somebody did something to me, you know, the the black magic or something like that. So in comparison to Africa, they quickly understood that. But in Papua, we are still working on that. And also, once you test for HIV, it's not like when they are still very healthy and you screen for HIV, it's difficult also to gather them up and say, let's do this and we are going to do the HIV testing. But they would want to present themselves to the medical facility while they are already sick or in AIDS condition. So we'll always encourage them to come forward for testing while they are still healthy, while while it's still just HIV, not AIDS. So when you talk of Africa, in my own country today, if if somebody feels uncertain with the condition, he or she'll just go to the pharmacy and buy the oral swab for HIV. And she does it herself, it reacts positive. She brings the same swab result to the doctor, whether she wants to go to the public hospital or to the private hospital. She brings it and said, I swabbed myself and this is what I got. So we no longer close windows and doors and do the counseling. People just bring themselves forward as compared to Papua. So in Papua, it's just a one-way gate. When you want to test for HIV, it's either you go to the public clinic, the government-owned clinic, or the government hospital or any other private hospital, that's when you you go and have the the HIV testing. Or you go to the private laboratory and you test for HIV. But if you are tested for HIV from a private laboratory, it means you are going to go back to that same one door that is the government facility. Because it's a subsidized program from the government of which the medication is for free. So once you go back there, you are going to be registered your identity and everything. So a lot of people here, they feel inferior that they've tested for HIV and they are positive. And they wouldn't want to go to the public hospital or wherever they are going to be registered with their identity cards. So we are facing a huge problem with that. They don't want to be registered. So there's an application, their whole country. So once everybody's tested for HIV, they are registered into that application. And it's known the whole country that even if you go to any medical facility, you want to top up your medication, you can just top up because you are already registered. So a lot of people do not want to do that. They don't want to be registered. Hence, they decide to refrain from treatment.

Grantley Martelly: 21:52

They don't want to be identified.

Dr. Aggy: 21:54

They don't want to be identified.

Grantley Martelly: 21:57

Let's do a clarification here. There's two clarifications I need to make. When I first began, I said Papua New Guinea, and you're not in Papua New Guinea, you're in Papua, Indonesia. They're two separate countries, two separate places. So that's my error, and I stand corrected. You are serving in Papua, Indonesia.

Dr. Aggy: 22:16

Yes.

Grantley Martelly: 22:18

Other question is can you explain to our audience the difference between HIV and AIDS? Because you're making a distinction between the two. From your medical perspective, what is the difference?

Dr. Aggy: 22:29

The difference is HIV is not a disease, it's just a virus that got into somebody's body. And the the function of HIV in simple terms, it ja it is there to destroy the immune system that protects a human or that helps fight infections. The immune system. And what is AIDS? AIDS is comprised of opportunistic infections that we are always facing on a daily basis, like TB, meningitis, all these diseases have been there a long time ago. But because our immune system has been compromised by HIV, we can no longer fight it on our own like we used to do. So when somebody has TB without HIV, they can be on treatment and it's okay. But if somebody has HIV and gets TB, it it becomes a complication. And also they can also have meningitis, they can have any other ailment of which such ailments that's what we call AIDS.

Grantley Martelly: 23:50

Okay. The distinction there is early detection, if I hear you correctly. And one of the battles you're fighting in the culture there is early detection. People don't want to be tested, they don't want to be detected early. If I hear you correctly, so then by the time you get to see them, they have already in full disease mode. Which makes your work much more difficult.

Dr. Aggy: 24:18

It it makes it very difficult and very expensive considering where we are in Papua. We are in a resource-limited province. Papua is very big, very huge, and geographically it's a difficult to reach area. It's very mountainous, and there are some areas that are very mountainous and waterlogged areas. So everything that we have here is is ordered from Jakarta or any other other province outside Papua. So it's it will be very, very expensive to treat AIDS rather than testing early and identify the HIV or diagnose with HIV and treat, put on antiretroferal therapy before getting sick. So once they get sick or once they become fully blown with AIDS, the treatment is so complicated. And at times you try to treat somebody who's having meningitis, having TB, and where once they're having TB, the TB becomes a multi-drug-resistant TB, because they attempts the default treatment while they were taking the first uh category of TB. So there are a lot of issues that happen.

Grantley Martelly: 25:39

So is there a difference in ages between men and women, most of your parents, male or female, or it's evenly distributed? And also children, let's also talk about the effect on on of airs on children.

Dr. Aggy: 25:51

Yeah. They we have children born with HIV. It has a huge, huge impact on them. Uh because when they are born with HIV, it means the mother, when she was pregnant, she she either didn't go for HIV screening or she didn't go to to antenatal care while she was still pregnant. So it's it's it's a World Health Organization standard that every pregnant woman gets screened for HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, and malaria. But some women, because they are living in out of reach areas or where do not where they do not have access to medical facilities, they would be pregnant and prefer having a home bed and they are being assisted by traditional midwives. And those traditional midwives, some of them they do not have the knowledge about a woman being HIV positive and transmitting the virus to the baby, and also them being at risk of trans of being infected. So in this case, when children are born from HIV-positive mothers, we usually want to give them prophylaxis, but if they are out of reach, we do not get in contact with them. So now those children it's either they don't reach the age of five.

Grantley Martelly: 27:24

Early mortality. So let's go back to the first part of my question. Do you have you seen is there a difference between men and women? A are are pretty pretty evenly distributed among the male and female population.

Dr. Aggy: 27:40

It's is you know, we have uh a lot of female, you know, it's not equally distributed. And a lot of women here, they are infected with HIV. But when we talk of HIV, we talk of two individuals having sexual contact. So it's either that woman has been tested for HIV and we did not do the partner contact follow-up. Usually, especially it's a mandate that when somebody tests positive for any communicable disease, we do the contact tracing. So at times they might have multiple sexual partners and sometimes they feel really bad about exposing themselves that they had multiple sexual partners of which they would prefer just to identify one, or they'll say, no, we're already divorced, or I'm I don't have any partner, um I'm living alone. So we cannot ethically we cannot push a certain individual, say, just tell us whom you have been in contact with. So gives us a huge number of women with HIV, other than men. Not because men are not infected. Men are also infected out there, but they do not come out in the open as women do.

Grantley Martelly: 29:06

Yes, that we we have a we have a similar issue here in the United States with men not wanting to go to the doctor until their their symptoms are being expressed. I have another podcast which I'm thinking about also sharing this on called Real Health Black Men. And the purpose of that podcast is to help men, primarily men of color, come to grips with the need for early detection and early screening to prevent some of these diseases so that they don't wait until they have pain or their full-blown disease to show up at the doctor. So when I met you, a couple of things I want to I want to clear up, I want to say here. When I met you, I was in Papua with an organization called Mission Aviation Fellowship and doing some work with them. And you were talking about the remote places where it is, and and sometimes it's hard for people in the West to understand when you talk about remote places. And I got to see that for myself. Papua is a large country, and some places are only accessible by foot or by canoe, or sometimes people are walking days to get there and walking back very remote villages, and what Mission Aviation Fellowship does, which I had an episode with their CEO last summer, is to provide airplanes that get people to these remote villages, people like you and teachers, doctors, nurses, supply clinics in these villages with medicine and teachers with supplies so that these people in remote areas can get access to medical facilities. But when we talk about medical facilities there too, we're not talking about the mayor clinic. We're talking about a clinic in a small clinic in a village that may be serving people from hundreds of miles around, right? It's something that's hard to imagine unless you've seen it.

Dr. Aggy: 30:59

So it's very true. Even if uh when you go to to the remote areas, when you talk of remote areas, we talk of um an area where uh the Cisna, the Cisna airplanes or the Piratos airplanes, when when when when you miss the time, like if you go after 10, they would say we cannot get there anymore because it's too windy. We we risk you know having you know a plane crash. And at times they would drop you somewhere, and then you have to walk on foot. Maybe for a person like me, I would walk for five days. But you know, by God's grace, we managed. There are a lot of obstacles that we ended up. Encounter and this is this is a tropical region. There's a lot of rain, there's a lot of uh rivers, flowing rivers, not just rivers, flowing rivers, and the thick vegetation. So we manage, and a lot of people who have who are called to serve, they don't look at that. They just move forward. So I'm I'm I'm proud to say that I am one of them. I once went to a village in the highlands called Kurima, and the car just parked by the riverside, and the river is called Yetni, and you don't see the water flowing. It flows from underground, and you just see the sand on top. But they would say, if you misstep, you are going to drown in that sand. So the people who know the way, they will lead you. And we were following their footsteps and going through that river Yetni. And I managed. Where I come from, I don't have mountains. I've never I've never climbed a mountain, but I did hear. So then I said yes. So this is a calling.

Grantley Martelly: 33:01

All of that, all of that just to deliver medical care to the village.

Dr. Aggy: 33:05

No, not only to deliver medical, not only to deliver medical care, there will be people there. When I first came here, I really wanted them to know about HIV. I really wanted them to know that there's still life after being infected. When we do the outreach programs, we will do the testing. Maybe we'll go there for three weeks or even a month. And they will be knowing that, oh, the team is coming from the church. They are coming. And the women will be waiting for us up there. So after doing the outreach program, the testing and everything, that's when you feel good, like yes, all this climbing and crossing of valleys, it really paid. People now know that there's HIV. People now know that they should test. People now know that they should be on treatment. People now know that they should adhere to their medication once they are on treatment.

Grantley Martelly: 34:01

So you're bringing you bringing hope. Bringing hope to people. Yes, bringing hope to people. So one of the things you told me about in our first conversation is that one of the developments you've done since you've been there is you've started to create, is it health educators or people that you're training who can who can go out sometimes with you or heading you into places to help with medical education?

Dr. Aggy: 34:26

Yes. We we are still doing that. And uh I think you know the situation uh uh in those remote areas here in Papua, where there are conflict conflict regions, conflict areas. So a lot of uh medical personnel, they have been evacuated from those areas. So we realize that now that the medical personnel have been evacuated, they have gone back to their respective cities or villages. So nobody's there. So we decided to train the community healthcare workers. So when we train them, we are training them so that at least they start to educate their own people and they build bridges between the community and the only surviving clinic that is available or the hospital, the nearest hospital that is available. So we train them to do the malaria testing. We also train the traditional midwives to do the HIV screening for pregnant women. We train them also to be able to identify risk pregnancies and avoid obstratic fistulas amongst women and young girls who are pregnant. So they are doing a really quite a tremendous job. And there are some areas where I cannot go. But those community healthcare workers we trained, they are from those regions. They speak the same language, they they have the same culture, they understand each other. So once we train them, we equip them, and they are the ones who are going to represent us there. So they are the ones who are going to do the job, and we are just monitoring them. So it's it's it's it's quite a blessing that now they have access to the internet, we can communicate. And just two days ago, one of our traditional midwives had a complication with the placenta, and she was confused what was she going to do about it. It has been almost three hours, and then she decided to call, and it was a video call, and then we managed to help her to save the mother and the baby. So it's something that brings hope that, you know, yeah.

Grantley Martelly: 36:42

So you you're you're doing you're doing telemedicine in remote villages of Indonesia using satellite phones and computers.

Dr. Aggy: 36:51

Yes, can you imagine? One of our um, you know, I I think we have almost 15 uh traditional uh midwives, and those 15 traditional midwives, they cannot read, they cannot write, they cannot even speak Indonesian. They are the indigenous people. But we manage to communicate. I don't know how. You know, they you know, the work of God. I don't know how. Yes. Their Indonesian is not clear, and I cannot understand them, they cannot understand me. But we we we work together, we understand each other.

Grantley Martelly: 37:31

And you do it over the you do it over the computer, over video call. That is amazing. That is amazing that technology is being used in many positive ways. One of the things you we also talked about was the the effect of AIDS on children, and you you you were sharing me the story of the two children you adopted with um would you mind talking about that?

Dr. Aggy: 37:54

Yes, sure. One of my daughters, I met their parents, her parents when they came to the clinic for HIV care, but unfortunately we couldn't serve them for a long time. The father was on treatment with me for almost six months, but he he couldn't make it. And then after that, the mother also was very sick, and the baby was almost three months by then, and she managed to live for almost two months and then she passed on. If I may bring you back a bit, from my practice at the clinic where I uh the clinic that I'm running for HIV and AIDS care, uh we have an ambulance, and nobody wants to drive HIV positive people, even dead bodies they don't want. So they are afraid of it. So I was the ambulance driver, even if there's an emergence that I would need to rush to the hospital for some procedures or something else, or if there's uh uh death, I would need to bring the dead body back to the family. So it was just me and my nurses. So we were just a team of women, but still we couldn't find a driver who would want to drive dead bodies, HIA's dead bodies. So they'll it's discriminatory. They don't want to do that. And so when I brought the body of the mother, and then I said, I have the baby too, and the relative said, Is the baby HIV? Then I said, Not yet. We cannot diagnose HIV yet until 18 months, and then they said we cannot accept the baby because we have other babies here. We are afraid that baby would infect other babies. And the body also was not allowed inside the house. So we brought the body to the grave side, and then we brought the baby back to the clinic. So bringing up that child at a facility where she sees a lot of people suffering, and although the nurses were so loving and everybody loved, even the other patients laughed so much, and she was such a bubbly little girl. And then I realized I spoke to my husband, I said, I think the woman in me does not allow this baby to be raised in such a facility where every day she sees very sick people because at our facility we do not take care of working patients, very, very sick, bedridden AIDS, fully blown AIDS cases. I didn't want her to see that. And then we agreed that we bring her to our house. And then that's how she came. And then she after 18 months, we did the dry blood testing for HIV detection, and then yeah, she was She's now your daughter. She's now my daughter.

Grantley Martelly: 40:59

She's now your daughter. So you you didn't just rescue her from the hospital, you adopted her. Yeah, and then when I got to meet her, that was great.

Dr. Aggy: 41:08

Yes. And then I said, let God's will be done. So until now, she's in uh junior high school.

Grantley Martelly: 41:17

Great. I'm growing strong.

Dr. Aggy: 41:19

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly: 41:20

So what what are some of the myths about HIV and AIS that you would like our audience to understand?

Dr. Aggy: 41:26

Yeah. There there are a lot of myths about HIV. And you know, a lot of people would think that HIV is a case, whereby when somebody has HIV and transmits it to the wife and other people, they would think, yeah, it's a curse from God.

Grantley Martelly: 41:43

A curse. Yeah.

Dr. Aggy: 41:44

Yeah. That's what they think. And some would think that uh HIV is transmitted through sharing uh utensils like sharing the same cup, the same plate, and sharing the same clothes. And you'd find that when uh somebody dies of uh AIDS, they would they have a tendency of banning the clothes. So at times I would say to them, just wash the clothes and iron them, and you continue to use them. You don't have to. And at times when I'm doing my outreach programs, I would ask them, like, have you ever been into a department store where you want to buy your trousers or your dress or something else? They said yes. Have you ever fitted that trousers, tried it on? They said yes. And have you ever asked the shopkeeper that has this been tried by somebody with HIV before I tried? They said no. Then I said, So how would you know that somebody came and fitted it and tried it? And you know, was that person HIV positive or not? They said no. Then I said, it's the same. So we are getting there but slowly through education. So, and at times they would think that HIV is transmitted through malaria bites, mosquito bites. So they would always ask, like, since mosquitoes they bite people, and if it bites somebody with HIV, is it going to transmit the the the to the next person? And then I'll say, if that is the case, then the whole world would be HIV positive. Malaria, mosquitoes, they only transmit parasites. They have parasites, not viruses. And at the same time, when a mosquito bites somebody and there's the blood, it does not spit the blood back to somebody. So it just bites, so there's no mal uh HIV transmission there. So there are a lot of mice, uh, people think that HIV uh can be cured. That's how they think. Yes, we tell them that we can cure AIDS, AIDS can be cured, AIDS can be totally, totally be cured, but HIV can be suppressed. We suppress the virus through antiretropheral therapy if taken as prescribed. When uh now we have um advanced testing for for HIV monitoring where we do the fireal loads, we do the CD4 counts. So once we do the CD4 count and the CD4 count is higher, and then the fire load is suppressed, and then it says the end result for the fireal load says undetectable virus. So that message of saying undetectable virus, when it's conveyed to a certain individual whose understanding is limited, they would say the nurse or the doctor said my virus is undetectable, which means my virus is gone. And then the next thing they don't want to continue with their antiretroferal therapies. So once they stop the antiretropheral therapy, when it comes back, it comes back forward and it's very aggressive. And then people would say, You are faking us. You are saying there's life after being HIV positive. If you take your medication, why is it that our son was on HIV treatment, was on antiretropherrotherapy? And when when he went to test, they said the virus is not detectable. And we stopped medication, and then he got very sick and he died. Why? So it we still have to explain again in education again and again and again. Yes.

Grantley Martelly: 45:25

Which creates the opportunity for the virus to come back. Yeah.

Dr. Aggy: 45:28

To come back again.

Grantley Martelly: 45:30

So many similarities with other with people that we talk to here as well. You know, people say, well, I feel better. Why do I have to take my medication?

Dr. Aggy: 45:38

And some that some they would say, I don't, they'll bring back the medication.

Grantley Martelly: 45:42

Yeah, humanity, no matter where they live, yeah. So what are what are some of the greatest needs in your ministry right now?

Dr. Aggy: 45:48

Some of the greatest needs in um in my ministry right now is that uh I still want to continue to train the people. Now we are having a pip uh a problem with um internally displaced people from conflict areas. And while they're in those shelters, they are not, you know, being monitored. So there are a lot of things going there: teenage pregnancies, circulation of infections. So I still want to reach out more to them and train some of the active people within those communities so that they do the health awareness within their communities where they are displaced. So now we are having an influx of uh um people having communicable diseases, but they don't even know how to deal with that. And those areas where they are uh displaced people, it's it's not easy to reach those places. But we can access them. Just like a few months ago, we brought in about 30 uh participants, 15 men and 15 women. We trained them other, we do we train the midwives, we trained some some to do the screenings and stuff like that, so that they'll be able to do the health education within their communities where they are. So that is my major need for now. And at the same time, we want to upgrade our testing equipment, especially our laboratory, would want to upgrade it so that at least when we are doing all these outreach programs, we bring our equipment with us so that when we get there, we wouldn't say, Oh, we wish if we could have brought this or if we had this, we could have helped this person. And most mostly we would have hundred plus people who are gathered. And if I ask them, do you really want to know your status? Do you really want to know what's happening in you? And then they would voluntarily say yes. So we'll do the HIV testing, we do the syphilis testing, we do the hepatitis testing, we do the malaria testing, we also screen for leprosy, we screen for TB, but then we do not have portable equipment that we could bring with us. So it's a major obstacle that most of the times I would want to, I would see there are signs and symptoms of leprosy, but then I would want to know more what type of leprosy does this person have that would really, you know, make me do the do the right decision, the treatment. How am I going to deal with it? I want to test the morphology, I want to investigate more. We have portable machines, but we cannot, we do not have that. We have TB. I can't just go there and say, yes, you are having signs and symptoms of TB. And then I will say, um, I'm going to access anti-TB drugs for you. It's very dangerous because most of the times they might be having multi-drug-resistant TB. So we are not doing any good, but we'll be doing more harm. So that is the major complication that we face when we are in our outreach programs, in our in our ministry.

Grantley Martelly: 49:06

How do you get medicines and equipment for your ministry? Are they supplied by private parties or supplied by the government? Or is medicine easily available where you are?

Dr. Aggy: 49:17

Yeah. So when we talk of HIV and TB and leprosy, those drugs, they are only supplied by the government. So we work together with the government. Our organization works hand in hand with some uh government uh hospitals from the areas that we are working. So once we we are, for example, when we are going to a certain district, we go to the district medical um uh office, and then we tell them that we are coming here for A, B, C, D, and then they will tell, okay, if we have some cases like TB and HIV and stuff like that, we are going to report to them as well. This is what we have found, so we'd want to have some medication, and then they'll access it to us, and then we redistribute to the people in it. So there's no organization that can afford to buy an retroviral drug for the rest of a certain individual's life. Only the government can access it. But the government cannot go door to door like we do. The government does not go to the churches like we do. So we are also working on behalf of the government to reach out to the people in need. And then we report to them, they supply us, especially with uh TB and HIV drugs, anthropherapies and leprosy drugs, they they supply us and even the malaria drugs, at times they supply us. But when we talk of uh the reagents for testing, at times they do not supply supply us from the organization and other donors. That's that's when they support us with that, because we would need um the reagents to do the testing.

Grantley Martelly: 51:08

What about equipment? The the the testing equipment, you said like the mobile lab and stuff like that. Does that come from the government too, or that comes from private donations?

Dr. Aggy: 51:18

It comes from donations. It comes from donations. Like I said before, we would want to upgrade that so that for now we we only have an in-house lab. So when you have an in-house lab, when you go to the Highlands, to those remote areas, you need a portable machinery.

Grantley Martelly: 51:39

But that and portable machines are available, you just need people or companies to donate them to the ministry.

Dr. Aggy: 51:46

Yes.

Grantley Martelly: 51:48

So what are what are three things that you would like our audience to take away from this discussion?

Dr. Aggy: 51:53

Uh I would like our audience to know that uh when somebody's faced with compassion, it drives away shame that when we are compassionate with others, regardless of their condition and that uh discrimination also kills people's will to live.

Grantley Martelly: 52:26

Sorry Don't be sorry, you're doing you're doing important work that's very heavy and you're you're saving lives every day.

Dr. Aggy: 52:39

It's not easy to see people suffering, but it's easy to talk about it. When we join hands, when we talk about it, when we speak up, it turns when people skip to speak up, they will be misunderstood. Am I exposing something? We are trying to reach out. This is our way of saying we have a problem. People are dying. And some they died before they even get tested, they died before the medication reach out to them. So we at Gerard We are trying, we are not alone. There are a lot of people doing this, a lot of people working towards this problem of HIV and communicable diseases and other communicable diseases a lot, but we are failing. We are failing. At times we fail because we do not have resources. Which means for them to be able to work at an organization like me, they don't have any security like pension and stuff like that. So they would prefer to go and work for the government where they are not able to travel the way ahead. They will be working within a certain case. So we lose a lot of experienced personnel because working either within the church or in private organizations like I do, they feel they do not have any short for their future. But when they are working for the government, they have pension, they have a guaranteed salary. So for us, when we do not have donor funding, which means we are going to cut our personnel, or we are not going to be able to do many other things. So those are the insecurities that we have.

Grantley Martelly: 55:32

Thank you for sharing that with us and with our listeners. We'll be praying that God provides the workers, provides us resources, provides the donors and uh the local staff to work with you and with your clinic to continue to save lives. What is the name of your clinic?

Dr. Aggy: 55:54

It's Jarat Papua.

Grantley Martelly: 55:56

How do you spell that?

Dr. Aggy: 55:59

J E R A T Papua. Jarat Papua means Jaringan Krijaraket Papua, the Papuan People's Network, it uh works with the indigenous people.

Grantley Martelly: 56:14

It means the Papua People's Network.

Dr. Aggy: 56:16

Yes.

Grantley Martelly: 56:18

And you're you're located in Papua, Indonesia.

Dr. Aggy: 56:21

Yes, in Jaipura. But um I'm in Jaipura, but we work in all corners of Papua where we are needed, where we have access, we go there. Yes.

Grantley Martelly: 56:34

So what is the best way for people to get in touch with you? Is it by email or do you have a website or ministry contact?

Dr. Aggy: 56:45

Personally, I I would prefer to be contacted through email because I am very much afraid of social media because I deal with very sensitive issues and I wouldn't want to be caught on the wrong side of posting very sensitive issues. And like I told you before, people here in Papua are very, very sensitive. And if there's one thing that I want to install within the people I save is trust.

Grantley Martelly: 57:20

Maybe the best way for people to get a hold of you maybe to send an email to me.

Dr. Aggy: 57:25

Yes.

Grantley Martelly: 57:26

At my email address for this podcast, above the noise24 at gmail.com, above the noise24 at gmail.com, and then we can get that information to Dr. Ige and to her team and get back to you because we'd we would not want to compromise the valuable and critical work that you're doing.

Dr. Aggy: 57:47

Thank you.

Grantley Martelly: 57:50

So before we close today, is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience?

Dr. Aggy: 57:55

Uh as emotional as I am, um we are having a lot of uh youth, the young generation, the forgotten generation, they are the ones that are now uh suffering from uh AIDS and living with HIV. And the reason why I said the forgotten generation is because when I came to Papua, maybe they were still babies. And nobody thought that those babies will grow up and want to be adults and experience life like other adult people. So we've only focused on the middle age, and then when we came back again, now it's the 30 and below that are now highly infected with HIV and we have a problem of alcohol and drug abuse. So we also would like to start a shelter for rehabilitation for alcohol and drug abuse, and also um a youth-friendly center for the youth so that at least they have a safe space where they can express their feelings. Like we talked about HIV. If they see the HIV problem within their families, their parents are HIV infected, it has social, emotional, economical impact on those young generations. So it is also something that gives me sleepless nights that each time as I finish this, I'm going to go out again and meet them door to door. And some of them, their parents have already died and they are living by themselves. And how are they surviving? I cannot bring every child in my house. But we need a safe space for them. So it's painful that some they don't go to school anymore. They are in the street, especially the girl child, very vulnerable. Just look at them, how best can we help? We are not okay. They are not okay.

Grantley Martelly: 1:00:06

You give us much to think about, and then you give us much to pray about, and hope one of my prayers is that maybe the Lord will touch the heart of people who listen to this episode and uh move upon them about how they can help, how they can participate, and even not minimizing the power of prayer, and if all that people can do is prayer for you and for your team, so that you'd be safe, and that you'd have the resources, the strength, emotional, physical, mental, spiritual strength to continue the ministry. And we will prayer for that dream of yours to build a community center for these forgotten youth, so they have a place to come.

Dr. Aggy: 1:00:48

Yes, thank you.

Grantley Martelly: 1:00:50

Thank you very much for the time you spent with us today. Thank you very much for being vulnerable and sharing and the work that you're doing. It is not a work that many people would want to do or many people are cut out to do, but it's clear that God has called you to do that work. And I'm thankful that you're doing it, and I'm thankful that got the opportunity to meet you, and I'm thankful that today many of my listeners will also get the opportunity to meet you and see the work that you're doing. Thank you very much. Remember to subscribe and leave us a rating, which is very important for helping on podcasts, succeed in the podcast remote and helping upload other people. Email us a comment at above the noise24@ gmail.com. Abovethe noise24 @email.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @abovethe noise 24. Thank you for listening. Please share this episode with a friend.