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Early diagnosis can help stem the tide of HIV/AIDS
Patrick Leeman and Noloyiso Mchunu. 16 July 2003. The Mercury. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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The HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa was killing 1 000 people a day, the chairman of the Board of Health Providers, Brian Brink, said in Durban yesterday.
Speaking to delegates at the Southern African annual conference of the board at Durban's International Convention Centre, he said the only way to achieve a change in sexual behaviour in South Africa was for every sexually active person to know his or her HIV status. Unless there was an early diagnosis, the epidemic would rage on, he said.
The speaker, who is also chairman of the board of trustees of Anglo-American, said the current procedure for voluntary counselling and testing was too cumbersome and should be streamlined to last no longer than an hour.
Brink said that young women in South Africa were dying as a result of HIV/AIDS at a rate that was three and a half times greater than their male counterparts. "We need to protect young girls from this epidemic," he said.
Brink said it was not true that South Africa could not afford an anti-retroviral programme for all its citizens. Funds from international donors were available, as well as money from the Global Fund.
He said that giving Nevirapine to pregnant women who were HIV-positive was only a partial solution. It was possible to cut the transmission of the virus from mother to child down to only 5%, Brink said.
Meanwhile, orphans of HIV/AIDS in certain areas of KwaZulu-Natal are often deprived of their inheritance by their own family members and the community, leaving them poorer and vulnerable, a recent qualitative case study revealed yesterday.
These findings were released during a presentation on the study of the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural household labour held by the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria.
The study was conducted for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in the rural areas of Empangeni, Umzinto, KwaNyuswa and Muden last year.
Chief research specialist Catherine Cross said the orphans were mostly regarded as squatters in their own community, because they were considered minors who were not fit to hold land.
"They can occupy the land, but they are not formally regarded as land owners or holders. Hence, anyone can snatch that away from them" she said.
Cross said the children, who were mostly in the 16 to mid-twenties age group, were forced from land they inherited from their parents, as well as other assets, by people who imposed themselves on them claiming they were relatives. General members of the community were also guilty of such conduct, she said.
Other culprits are neighbours who pretend to care for the children, only to steal parts of what is supposed to be their land.
However, Cross said the findings were not enough to conclude that the same incidents were taking place in other rural areas in the province. She said the research did not amount to an in-depth survey. She said they had found that there were hardly any child-headed families in the areas, but that there were many youth-headed families, or those whose eldest member was over the age of 16. Of 60 households interviewed, the majority were either headed by widows or youths.
She said that in many cases, the communities were against single young men taking over the property of their fathers, who had died.
Other findings of the study revealed that widows were in a position to take over their late husbands' ownership of land, but struggled in providing for the rest of the family. |
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