The struggle continues
ON FRIDAY, we commemorated World Aids Day, a day that was once synonymous with candles and the wearing of red ribbons to commemorate the millions who had died as result of HIV and Aids.
In the mid-990s, the mantra was unequivocal, there was no middle ground in the war against the disease – you were infected by it or affected by it. If you didn’t know someone who had died as a result of it, you would soon know someone who was infected by it – or be infected yourself.
The key of course, in most cases, was that HIV/Aids was often a lifestyle choice. The government exhortation to “Abstain, Be Faithful and/or Condomise” was as simple as it was banal, yet paradoxically difficult to have the message accepted and internalised.
The biggest turning point came early in Jacob Zuma’s presidency – something that is often forgotten in the tsunami of revelations and accusations in the state capture tragedy that will for ever frame his presidency.
Zuma’s decision to roll out critically needed antiretroviral medication played a major role, not just in breaking mother-to-child transmission but also in allowing HIV/Aids to be handled as a critical disease rather than the inevitable death sentence that it had been.
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 seriously compromised by the incidence of tuberculosis, something that medical dogma once perceived as 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 the numbers of those infected by HIV are nil.
The struggle continues, but we do have reason to rejoice.