Every day is World Aids Day for Soweto gran
EVERYONE knows the red ribbons on lapels, the banners outside corporate head offices and the annual hype around World Aids Day on December 1.
For Soweto granny, 78-yearold Virginia Mbaimbai, or “Jola” as she is affectionately known, remembering is not reserved for one day of the year. She lost six of her children, one after the other in just one year, to Aids-related deaths.
They started in 2002 during the height of then-president Thabo Mbeki’s Aids denialism and it would be another two years before antiretrovirals (ARVs) would become available in public healthcare facilities.
Mbaimbai recalls: “I was burying my children one after the other that year – when one would return from the hospital, another would go in.”
While politicians debated and dragged their heels, Mbaimbai and her adult children were powerless with no access to the life-saving cocktail of drugs.
“I remember trying to get these medicines from a private doctor in Khwezi (an area in Soweto) because we’d heard they could make this illness better, but the doctor just kept telling us the pills weren’t available yet,” Mbaimbai says.
She was a factory worker for a jam company – which is how she raised the four grandchildren left in her care after the deaths of her children. They are all in their late twenties today and three still live with her.
Her four-roomed White City house is a modest, but contented home, she says, though she admits she has the usual granny’s anxieties.
“I worry that they won’t have jobs and I know that it would have been easier if their parents were alive. I think the only way I made it through was because of my faith,” she says, reflecting on those dark days.
The church group she’s part of visits people in hospital, praying for the sick and dying. Reaching out matters because she remembers what hurt her most was that nobody talked about her children being sick or dying.
“It was like everyone on our street knew someone who had HIV, but no one could talk about it,” she says of the stigma of the disease, which 7 million South Africans live with today.
Fast-forward to presentday South Africa, there are an estimated 3.5 million people on ARVs. For the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which was at the forefront of fighting for ARVs, access is part of the battle won.
TAC general secretary Anele Yawa says: “There are an estimated 3.5 million people who have access to the medication but there are another 3.5 million people who don’t. And this is where the problem lies.”
Yawa says the government must develop strategies that are specific to South Africa for triumphing over Aids – not merely implementing World Health Organisation ( WHO) treatment guidelines.
“The gover nment has adopted the 90-90-90 strategy, which means that by 2020, 90 percent of the population must know their status, 90 percent of those living with HIV/ Aids must have their viral load suppressed and 90 percent of those who need treatment must be on it.
“While this is good, it’s tricky because if the problems within our health system are not addressed, these goals will not be achieved.
“Issues like making sure community health workers are employed so they can help people adhere to their treatment or the issue of stock-outs must be addressed,” Yawa says.
For South Africa, another key area of focus must be about working to keep young women free from the disease.
A UNAIDS report, “Get on the fast track: Life cycle approach to HIV”, released last month honed in on the vulnerability of girls linking back to the dangerous “blesser” syndrome which seems to have gripped the country. The research found that women on average acquire HIV at a younger age than men.
UNAIDS also states last there were 380 000 new infections reported last year. Encouragingly, the number of Aids-related deaths has seen a steady decline from 2012. Currently, it is reported that 180 000 people died of an Aidsrelated illness last year.
Jola, who remembers her children each World Aids Day, keeps praying and tries to remain the bubbly, happy person she is – painting her nails a cheerful silver shade some days or dressing up to the nines.
“Sometimes when I’m really dressed up, I could give men a heart attack,” she jokes.
She keeps her humour be- cause she’s spent many sad days.
She says she’s happy that people now have access to ARVs although she knows HIV/Aids still claims lives.
“Where I stand today I know that HIV/Aids is nothing to fear.
“I don’t fear it but I have no respect for it,” the courageous gran says.