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TAC to provide anti-retrovirals in Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal
Angela Bolowana. 18 July 2003. The Mercury. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) plans to provide anti-retroviral medicine to HIV-positive people in KwaZulu-Natal, but has warned the government not to shirk its responsibility to save lives.
The activist organisation has been on a new tack this year and, apart from pushing the government to supply anti-retrovirals, has begun providing life-prolonging drugs to some of its five thousand members. The treatment campaign kicked off in the Western Cape earlier this year; KwaZulu-Natal is next on the list.
"The funds are already in the bank," said provincial co-ordinator Desmond Mpofu, who said he hoped anti-retrovirals would be available next month.
The organisation had set aside R500 000 for the project with money donated by TAC funders in Germany, Britain, Africa and South Africa. Mpofu said routine background checks confirmed that none of the funders was linked to the South African government or to any drug companies. Treatment would initially be provided to those most in need of the medicine.
He said the KwaZulu-Natal branch had delayed offering treatment because of a shortage of doctors able to provide the proper care.
"There are 27 000 doctors in South Africa, but only two thousand are experts on HIV/AIDS drugs. We need urgent training to get our country to where we need it to be. The government is fully aware of this," he said.
Because the TAC does not yet have enough KwaZulu-Natal doctors to prescribe the drugs and monitor patients, only five people would be treated in the beginning. But, as Mpofu points out, those five represent a major step forward in HIV and AIDS treatment.
Drugs would be provided only to those whose CD4 count (white blood cells in the immune system) was less than 200. The CD4 count indicates the state of one's immune system: a normal count is 1 500 or higher.
All KwaZulu-Natal branches intend testing a batch of 100 seriously infected people in the next two weeks. Of these, five would be given anti-retrovirals. Others would go on a waiting list until treatment can be provided.
The TAC is working with five doctors, who will take care of the patients and monitor their progress and their health in general.In the Western Cape, 400 TAC members were being treated with drugs, and these numbers were expected to grow. The Western Cape has a higher treatment rate because of a sufficient doctor support base.
In South Africa it costs R1 600 a month to get HIV/AIDS treatment. In Brazil, the source of the TAC's anti-retroviral drugs, it costs only R200.
Mpofu stressed that it was not the responsibility of the organisation to save lives, but that of the government. He said the TAC was merely "leading by example". Earlier this week, the TAC leaked a government report on HIV and AIDS treatment which stated that 1,7 million lives could be saved if treatment was made available. The government has said it was studying the report and it was "silly" of the TAC to have leaked it to the media before the government could take any concrete steps.
Transnet chairman Bongani Khumalo said at the launch of the National Ports Authority's Voluntary Counselling and Testing and Lifestyle Management Programme in Durban on Thursday that the "40-year-old manager who is convinced he cannot get HIV because he is such an empowered person is the one I want to confront with the reality of this disease".
The R3-million programme will focus on HIV/AIDS in the workplace. It is aimed at reducing the number of infections and managing the impact of the disease on the port authority's business. The programme will also distribute anti-retroviral drugs to infected employees and their families.
Khumalo said it was about time the corporate world dealt with issues that affected society. If South Africa was to turn back the tide of HIV/AIDS, top management needed to recognise the pandemic was everybody's business.
He said managers needed to realise that their position provided no immunity from the illness and that they, too, needed to lead a responsible lifestyle. |
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