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New deadline for ARV roll-out report announced
John Battersby. 09 October 2003. The Mercury. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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A government task team on anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS was working "day and night" to complete its task so that a report on the roll-out of anti-retrovirals could be presented to the cabinet, government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said yesterday.
Speaking at a briefing at the Union Buildings on yesterday's cabinet meeting, Netshitenzhe would not be drawn on when the report would be ready. But it was understood that the team had been given a deadline of the end of this week to complete its work and that the report could be considered at the cabinet's next meeting on October 22.
The report was handed to Health Minister Manto Tsha-balala-Msimang at the end of September by members of the implementation task team after she had been mandated to have a roll-out plan in place by September 30.
Netshitenzhe said that the government welcomed the fact that the task team had committed itself to dealing with outstanding issues with "utmost urgency".
"It is expected that this work would be completed as soon as possible for cabinet to finalise the matter," he said. The new sense of urgency comes in the same week that the Nelson Mandela Human Rights award went to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the HIV/AIDS activist group which launched a civil disobedience campaign earlier in the year. The TAC suspended the campaign only when the government promised that publication of a national treatment plan for those with HIV/AIDS was at hand. The government announced the move on August 10.
Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's wife, presented the award to TAC leader Zackie Achmat and volunteer worker Nonhlanhla Kubeka. Machel said that Mandela had personally approved the selection of the TAC for the award bearing his name.
"The TAC's struggle grows out of the best traditions of the anti-apartheid movement," she said. At the award ceremony, Anglo American Chief Executive Tony Trahar praised the TAC as "an extraordinary example of leadership in the battle against HIV/AIDS".
Trahar announced a R30 million community partnership project to speed up the provision of HIV/AIDS services in 200 public clinics. The project is to receive an additional R160 million from the Nelson Mandela Foundation (R10 million), the US-based Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation (R80 million) and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria (R70 million).
Netshitenzhe said, in response to a question, that the cabinet had not discussed the Nelson Mandela Award. In accepting the award, Achmat said that the TAC was prepared to co-operate with the government in the roll-out.
Nethsitenzhe said that South Africa had one of the best HIV/AIDS policies in the world which had been praised by the head of the UN's World AIDS programme, Peter Piot, for tripled government expenditure in combating the disease. He said that it was a comprehensive plan which covered every base including the treatment of rape victims and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.
He also said the government was unhappy that the South African media had singled out recent remarks by President Mbeki in an interview with the Washington Post when the president had already explained his remarks. |
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