With AIDS running rampant in his African homeland, Dr. Melaku Game is returning to Ethiopia as a physician wanting to help out.

“It’s exciting,” he said, as he prepared for the long flight on Friday. “For me, it’s more about giving back to the society I grew up in and did my high school education.”

He is one of seven Edmonton doctors leaving Saturday for Ethiopia as part of a 61-person medical team. A physician working out of Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital, he is vice-president of the Ethiopian North American Health Professionals Association’s. He is heading the organization’s third annual medical and surgical mission.

The team will arrive in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Sunday and stay until June 11.

Game was born in Harer and went to school from Grade 7 to 12 in Addis Ababa.

At the age of 17, he went to Germany to study medicine, fulfilling his childhood dream.

He came to Canada in 1999 and worked for two years in Toronto before coming to Edmonton.

It has been over 20 years since he left Ethiopia. Although he has been back several times for personal visits — his mother and other family members are still there — this will be the first time he’s visited as a doctor.

For Dr. Mark Joffe of the University of Alberta, it will be his first time ever in Africa.

Joffe is a specialist in infectious diseases and will be mainly speaking with Ethiopian doctors about HIV/AIDS management and treatment.

“They haven’t had access to the drugs we’ve had,” Joffe said. “We have people living and working in Canada that five years ago would have been dead. In Africa they’re losing a generation. Now they have the opportunity to offer treatment and allow them to get back to work, or school, or their lives too.”

Ethiopia does not have an HIV rate as high as other African countries, but its prevalence is increasing, Joffe said.

“The numbers there dwarf anything we see here.”

The 61 health professionals – 11 Canadians and 50 Americans – are split into six teams based on their individual specialties. Each team had to collect and ship their own supplies and medicines. For example, the cardiac team had to bring their own pacemakers.

The most important thing for all teams, said Game, is to pass on knowledge.

“We’ll be training the trainers of tomorrow in their local hospitals in their own environment,” he said.

Staff writer Laura Drake will have a full report on the medical team’s mission in Saturday’s Journal.