HIV cycle

more than old, or young women more than young men. Efforts to involve communities and to change social norms are as crucial as the efforts to reduce individual risk-taking.

Condoms, the only contraceptive method that can protect against HIV as well as against pregnancy, are vital to controlling HIV/Aids. Condoms should be widely accessible and their use promoted for sexually active people of all ages.

The current Aids educational programmes are often restricted to spreading information through posters, media and safe-sex billboards. More aggressive efforts are needed, reaching out to all rural and urban communities.

Teachers, communities and national leaders must emphasise the importance of safe sex to ensure that young and old understand this epidemic. Aids education must receive more attention at institutions of learning.

Of course, we as South African leaders and policymakers, are empathetic and increasingly committed to HIV/Aids prevention and control efforts. These days, the anti-retroviral treatment programme is delivered through more than 3 500 of the country's public health facilities; more than three million children and adults take antiretroviral medication daily; men and boys are being circumcised annually and mother-tochild-transmission is down to 2.7%, meaning that 70 000 infants are born HIV-free each year.

Despite these gains a multidisciplinary approach such as early identification and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, promotion of condom use, rapid blood screening to test for HIV in rural areas, public awareness campaigns, poverty eradication, and the development of prevention interventions is necessary.

Greater collaboration between government and non-government agencies at local level is also vital to make blood screening work efficiently at grassroots level.

If we are to stop the epidemic we need to break the cycle of new HIV infections. All of us working together – government, communities and civil society – can make difference. We must protect ourselves and those nearest to us. We must protect the vulnerable. We must combat the stigma and create an environment where all feel safe and comfortable about being tested and treated.

Phumulo Masualle is premier of the Eastern Cape