Progress on Aids front
ON FRIDAY we marked World Aids Day, a day once synonymous with candles and the wearing of red ribbons to commemorate the millions who had died as a result of the pandemic.
The question is how far have we come. A very long way indeed, from the corruption of the Sarafina 2 scandal that marked the first anti-Aids campaign of the post-1994 government to the garlic and beetroot concoction that followed, the Virodene scandal and the denialism that cost thousands of lives..
The biggest turning point came early in Jacob Zuma’s presidency – something that is often wholly forgotten in the tsunami of revelations and accusations in the state capture tragedy that will forever frame his presidency.
On December 14, 2001, the Pretoria High Court ruled in favour of the Treatment Action Campaign with regard to the rollout of antiretrovirals to HIV-positive pregnant women. The government appealed to the Constitutional Court, but on July 5, 2002 the Concourt ruled that antiretrovirals be made available immediately to pregnant women with HIV at hospitals and private clinics.
When Zuma became president in 2009, he greatly expanded the rollout of antiretroviral medication to include all HIV-positive women.
Resorting to a common sense approach after the dangerous and criminal lunacy of quackery and snake oil remedies that had characterised his predecessor Thabo Mbeki’s approach to this medical emergency, must forever remain one of Zuma’s greatest moments.
There have been other great South African moments in this all-consuming medical war, chief among them the ability to successfully treat HIV/ Aids in patients whose immune systems have already been serious compromised by the incidence of tuberculosis, something that medical dogma once perceived impossible.
The corner might have been turned in this war, major battles won, but there is no sign of any armistice. Victory might be glimpsed but it will never be achieved until all of us practise safe sex, cutting down the rate of transmission until new incidences of those infected by HIV are greatly reduced.
The struggle continues, but we do have reason to rejoice.