WORKING TOWARDS A SOCIETY FREE OF HIV AND AIDS
As we approach Freedom Day and start the annual festivities associated with celebrating our liberation, it is opportune to reflect on our gains and also on the challenges that still lie ahead that may undermine our freedom.
Many people have said that while the youth of the past suffered lack of opportunities and were victims of evils of apartheid including the notorious Bantu education, the youth of today face new challenges.
One of these is the HIV/ Aids pandemic that has the effect of denying our people the good life that they should be enjoying in a post-apartheid political dispensation.
However, accepting that we are the creators of our own destiny, we should first envisage the kind of country that we want to live in and then work tirelessly to ensure that we create the future of our own desire.
Our ideal future is to live in a society free of HIV and Aids. This is no longer just a wish but we are working on a massive programme to make this a reality.
During his State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa shared with the citizens of the country that his administration will be taking steps to eradicate HIV. The President also articulated a comprehensive plan to improve health service in the country.
In his address to Parliament, the president said: “This year, we will take the next critical steps to eliminate HIV from our midst.
“By scaling up our testing and treating campaign, we will initiate an additional two million people on antiretroviral treatment by December 2020.
“We will also need to confront lifestyles diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancers and cardiovascular diseases.
“In the next three months we will launch a huge cancer campaign similar to the HIV counselling and testing campaign.
“This will also involve the private sector as we need to mobilise all resources to fight this disease.
“The time has now arrived to finally implement universal health coverage through the National Health Insurance.
“The NHI Bill is now ready to be processed through government and will be submitted to Parliament in the next few weeks.
“Certain NHI projects targeting the most vulnerable people in society will commence in April this year.”
As the President has announced, we will be increasing our HIV testing and treating campaign.
We know that one of the reasons certain groups of people were reluctant to test was the fear of knowing their HIV positive status.
These people considered testing HIV positive as a death sentence. Of course this could not be further from the truth.
While in the past, antiretroviral treatment was given to people who had developed Aids, whose CD count was lower than 200, our new approach since about two years ago is that once a person tests positive, we would put him or her on treatment.
This is a revolution. It is a completely new way of our response to the pandemic.
But more importantly, this gives hope to the people to know their status. In the past, some people would question the wisdom of just knowing their status when they would not be placed on treatment immediately.
But now, all who test positive are given treatment with immediate effect.
Why is giving everybody who is HIV positive treatment a great move in the fight against the pandemic?
Studies have shown that if more people who are HIV positive are given treatment and become virally suppressed, they would no longer transmit the virus to other people.
This will reduce the incidents of infection. As the President has announced, we want to put an additional two million people on treatment over the next three years.
The message we are giving to our people is that people should test and know their HIV status. Those who are positive will be given treatment.
However, those who test negative should continue practising safe sex so that they remain negative. In other words, our ABC campaign should continue.
We are still calling on our people, especially the youth to
abstain from sex, and if they cannot abstain, they should be faithful to one partner and use condoms regularly.
The battle to have an Aids free society should be waged by all of us. The government can spend billions of rand making sure that condoms are available throughout the country, but it is up to the individual to use them.
The government can make testing available for free, but it is an individual choice to test and take treatment.
Yes we come from far, but we are definitely making progress. By 2004, the number of babies born HIV positive used to be 70 000 per year.
Now it is below 4 500, this happened due to our extra-ordinary success in the implementation of our Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission programme.
According to Stats-SA, TB mortality was at its peak in 2007, with 77 091 deaths a year.
The figure declined to 29 513 in 2016. HIV mortality peaked in 2013 at 23 203 and has started to decline and is now 21 830 in 2016.
Institutional maternal mortality rates were 189/100 000 live births in 2008. This has declined to 135/100 000 live births in 2016. This data is from the Ministerial Committee that reviews maternal mortality that occurs in health facilities. About 50% of maternal morality was attributable to HIV.
We have come a long way as a country in our fight against HIV and Aids.
We have made some huge strides and positioned our country as the world leader in providing people with treatment.
But our ultimate goal is not just to reduce the spread of HIV but to eventually eliminate HIV in our midst. This is not just a wish but a goal that we are striving towards.
Together, we can make this goal possible. Together, we can defeat HIV and Aids. Together, we can be free from HIV. The new dawn that our president spoke about can become a lived reality for us all. As the department of Health, this is our response to the Thuma mina (send me) call made by our president.