Blogs
August in Africa- Blog II (1 comment)
Posted by: Michael LeavittFriday, August 15th, 2008
Today, I met Solomon Zewdu M.D., who is the Country Director of Technical Support for Ethiopian HIV/AIDS initiatives. He is actually on assignment as an employee of Johns Hopkins University.
Mr. Zewdu grew up in Ethiopia, moving to the United States when he was sixteen years old. He went to high school and college in the United States and then qualified for medical school. He joined the military as a doctor and was ultimately drawn to work on HIV/AIDS prevention with responsibility for Asia and South East Asia, at the Department of Defense.
His wife, an accountant by training, is half Ethiopian. The Zewdu’s concluded it was time in their lives to explore how they could use their training and experience in helping the people of Ethiopia. He joined Johns Hopkins University, and the Zewdu’s (along with their son) moved here to devote their efforts to the fight against HIV/AIDS.
(L-R) Rich McKeown, HHS Chief of Staff; Julie Gerberding, M.D., Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Secretary Michael Leavitt; Bishop Abune Samuel of the Addis Ababa Diocese Ato Bedellu Ethiopian Orthodox Church Administrator; and Solomon Zewdu, M.D., Country Director of Technical Support for Ethiopian HIV/AIDS Initiative and Disease Prevention and Control Program, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins University.
Once here, Dr. Zewdu recognized that an alarming percentage of those who started antiretroviral treatment abandon it a short time later. He set out to find out why.
As a young boy in Ethiopia, Dr Zewdu was part of a devoted religious family. He had attended church every Sunday morning with his mother. He understood intuitively the impact that a person’s faith can have on patterns of behavior. He was not surprised to find that religion was having a major impact on the problem of people abandoning treatment.
The Ethiopian Orthodoxy has more than 30 million followers in Ethiopia proper. It has 30,000 monasteries and churches and 400,000 clerics who perform various religious services. It has its own rituals, customs and calendar. One of these rituals and beliefs involves “tsebel,”
Mike,
Best wishes for your safe travels, and BIG cudos for your front-line efforts.
RE: “… but to engage with religious leaders in a way which caused them to cooperate. In this way, both faith and health are enhanced.”
Maybe someday in America we will be enlightened enough to adopt this…