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Respected academics make united call for access to treatment
HIVAN Media Office
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On 16th February 2003, Professor Shula Marks - OBE FBA (Professor Emerita, SOAS and Senior Distinguished Research Fellow, School for Advanced Study, University of London), submitted the following letter to London?’s The Observer newspaper. Co-signed by a number of respected academics concerned about the welfare of South Africa and its citizens, this letter was also faxed to SA?’s Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and Deputy-President Jacob Zuma in his capacity as Chair of the SA National AIDS Council (SANAC).
As co-Directors of HIVAN, we endorse the sentiments expressed in the letter, and are pleased that HIVAN as an organisation can support its dissemination via our website.
Signed:
Professor Eleanor Preston-Whyte (HIVAN Director: Social and Behavioural Sciences and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Development, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban)
and
Professor Jerry Coovadia, Victor Daitz Foundation Chair of HIV/AIDS Research, Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, and HIVAN Director of Biomedical Sciences
Letter to the Observer 16-2-2003:
As South Africans and friends of South Africa, we listened with interest to President Mbeki's speech at the opening of the South African parliament today (14th February) in which he expressed his government's continued commitment to a comprehensive strategy on HIV and AIDS, including implementation of the decisions of the Constitutional Court. We are concerned, however, that in this, the President failed to make equally clear his government's commitment to the national provision of anti-retroviral treatment (ART) for people with AIDS, without which any comprehensive strategy must fail.
This is particularly disappointing in view of earlier reports (see the Observer 2 Feb 2003) that adequate financial provision for ART would be announced in Trevor Manuel's budget in March. If those reports are true, we ask Minister of Finance Manuel and Deputy-President Zuma, as Chairman of SANAC, to confirm them officially and without delay. This is important because despite a number of such statements over the past few years, there has as yet been no serious incorporation of anti-retroviral treatment into national treatment and prevention plans.
The failure of the corporate sector and government to sign the recent NEDLAC agreement between government, the unions and business and the inaction of the South African National Aids Council (SANAC), set up as the highest body that advises government on all matters relating to HIV/AIDS and custodian of the South African National Strategic Plan on HIV/AIDS, are only two examples of the obstacles that have been placed in the way of an effective strategy.
Given the devastating scale of suffering and death from HIV/AIDS in the country and the success of anti-retroviral treatment, serious commitment to a national strategy is daily more urgent. The immediate implementation of a comprehensive national treatment plan through a revitalised National Aids Council is now crucial if lives are to be saved and serious civil conflict averted.
Co-signed by:
Prof Colin Bundy (Director SOAS, former Vice-Chancellor, University of Witwatersrand)
Prof Martin Hall (Deputy Vice-Chancellor University of Cape Town)
Prof Shula Marks OBE FBA (Professor in the History of Southern Africa Emerita, University of London)
Prof Max Price (Dean of Health Science, University of Witwatersrand Medical School)
Prof Stuart Saunders (former Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town)
Prof Zena Stein (Professor in Public Health (Epidemiology) and Psychiatry Emerita, Columbia University)
Prof Mervyn Susser Sergievsky Professor of Epidemiology Emeritus, Columbia University)
Professor Alan Whiteside (Professor and Director of the Health Economic and AIDS Research Division, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban and University of East Anglia) |
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