Philanjalo, since 1998, holds high its core objective: which is to alleviate the devastating impact of HIV and TB in our local community, our province and beyond. It is a good time to evaluate our activities and to check that our strategy and relevance keeps abreast with the HIV and TB epidemics which have moved on and matured significantly in these 23 years. We have seen huge changes from the early days when we worked in an environment of oppressive stigmatization and under the gloom of political denial while endeavouring to provide palliative care for the terminally ill. We now have highly effective anti-retroviral therapy (ART), seen stigmatisation mostly dissolve and had a turnaround in government commitment with the mobilization of mass programs and resources to address HIV. To complicate things along the way, Philanjalo with its partners in 2005 uncovered an XDR- TB epidemic among our HIV patients which brought immediate international attention to our remote Tugela Ferry village. The world’s eyes were on us as we rose up with our partners to meet the challenge in a way that proved to become a best practice model adopted in the Department of Health national guidelines and visited for benchmarking by provincial and international delegations. While all this has resulted in huge improvement, the evolving epidemics continue to create new challenges and opportunities for Philanjalo. More than ever we have an important role to play.

Collaboration

Our success would not have been possible without close collaboration and assistance from our partners at the Department of Health (DoH), Yale University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, HPCA, UKZN and our amazing funders who have trusted and supported our endeavours. The Philanjalo Board has capably carried the responsibility of steering this ship through all kinds of seas whether rough or calm. Our spectrum of Board members represent those well connected to the local community, regional authorities, the international scientific and clinical network, and major South African medical research institutions (URC and CAPRISA) affording an invaluable strength, influence and input to Philanjalo affairs. We will continue to build our Board with capacity, competency, involvement and dedication to improve the governance and support of the organization.

Philanjalo has forged close relations with the local Department of Health District office and two district Hospitals in the Church Of Scotland Hospital and Greytown Hospital where we are working together on many fronts.

Philanjalo is also represented on the National MDR-TB advisory team and KZN TB/Drug Resistant TB technical forum which is a credit to the respect our organization has earned for working with drug resistant TB in uMsinga and beyond. We have recently been awarded the PIMA proposal by NIH, the IPT proposal by US-CDC and the Palliative Care project sponsored by Standard Bank. The addition of these projects greatly expand our work.

With the current recession and increased competition for funding we are even more indebted to the funders who continue to put grease in our wheels and support our work. Our prayers have been answered and up to now, by God’s grace, we have not needed to retrench any staff or cut services. This enables us to continue the work we have started and look forward to where it will lead us in the years to come.

Timeline

1998 – Philanjalo opens a home base care programme for community members affected by the HIV epidemic

1999 – A clinic for opportunistic infection management is opened

2000 – An HIV drop in testing centre is established

2002 – Philanjalo registers as a Non-Profit Organization

2002 – Philanjalo Hospice opens with a 16 bed in-patient unit for the terminally ill

2003 – Philanjalo launch the “Sizonquaba” Study with Yale, providing antiretroviral drugs to HIV positive TB patients

2005 – In Tugela Ferry, Philanjalo and partners uncover the world’s largest epidemic of XDR-TB outbreak

2006 – Philanjalo publishes a Lancet paper in collaboration with Yale and Albert Einstein describing the XDR-TB outbreak

2006 – Philanjalo, Global Fund and local partners build and open a place of safety for vulnerable children

2008 – The In-Patient Unit expanded to 32 beds

2008 – A collaboration between Philanjalo, DoH, UKZN, Yale and Albert Einstein is formed, resulting in numerous studies into MDR/XDR-TB

2008 – Philanjalo supports DoH in opening a decentralised MDR-TB clinic in Greytown

2009 – Philanjalo lunches Intensive Case Finding in the community for early identification of MDR-TB

2010 – Awarded contract by NACOSA to provide services to orphans and vulnerable children

2010 – Give funds by IDT for providing stripends to 100 of our community workers

2010 – Awarded URC contract to provide technical support and training to 8 provinces for decentralising MDR care into the community

2012 – Awarded NIH grand to study feasibility of PIMA CD4 analyzer in community settings

CONTACT US

Philanjalo Organization work in Tugela Ferry, that is next to the Tugela River, in Msinga district. It is located between Greytown and Dundee, that is in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa.

Mailing Address

P.O. Box 195

Tugela Ferry

3010

South Africa

Physical Address

Philanjalo Care Centre

R33 – Street

Tugela Ferry

3010

Office Phone: 033 493 0429

Fax: 086 774 0429

E-mail info@philanjalo.org.za