Motsoaledi endorses ‘Kwazulu-natal approach’ to HIV fight
THE South African National AIDS Council (Sanac), which advises the government on the fight against HIV and tuberculosis (TB), is due to adopt KwaZuluNatal’s multisectoral approach that involves all stakeholders at community level, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said yesterday.
SA has the largest number of people living with HIV in the world and KwaZulu-Natal is regarded as the epicentre of the disease in SA, with 1.6-million people living with the virus. The province also has the highest incidence of TB.
The chairman of Sanac, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, yesterday praised KwaZulu-Natal’s HIV and TB Flagship Programme, saying it was a robust approach for “wallto-wall coverage programmes and interventions in communities”.
Dr Motsoaledi said Sanac’s new multisectoral approach would include input from a range of affected parties. It would also include a target of having at least 10 primary care workers in each municipal ward.
He said across SA there had been an increase in life expectancy at birth, thanks to the early administration of antiretrovirals.
The infant mortality had fallen 25% over the past five years, due also to reductions being achieved in mother-to-child transmission of HIV, he said.
The minister said with effect from next year the government intended to make fixed-dose antiretroviral treatment available, as opposed to the many pills a day that many people living with HIV currently have to take.
Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in SA, said the country was at the forefront of research on HIV. The latest breakthrough was the discovery of an antibody that kills the virus in a patient.
Prof Karim said the antibody would “give us clues” for the “next generation of AIDS vaccine” and a report was expected to be published in a scientific publication next month.
KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize said the province’s multisectoral approach to dealing with HIV and TB involved the government, business, labour and civil society and the formation of AIDS councils at provincial, district and metropolitan, local government and municipal ward committee level. Traditional leaders were also involved in the strategy, which had been a major factor in the province barely being able to cope with the demand for male circumcisions, he said.
Dr Mkhize said the province spent R5.6bn a year on the fight against HIV out of the province’s annual budget of more than R22bn. An additional R500m a year to fight the epidemic had come from US aid funding.
A core aspect of the multisectoral approach was “war rooms” in municipal wards, which provincial departments had to visit regularly. This formed a base for youth and other provincial volunteer programmes, and which dealt with socioeconomic issues at community level.