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US initiative provides free treatment in Umlazi
Patrick Leeman. 12 November 2003. The Mercury. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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In the absence of a clear-cut policy from the South African government, a United States-backed community initiative is forging ahead and is treating 250 people with HIV/AIDS free of charge with anti-retroviral drugs at the Ithembalabantu Clinic (Place of Hope) at Umlazi in Durban.
The intention of the US partner, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, is to counsel and treat two million people free of charge with ARVs in South Africa by the year 2006, according to its president, Michael Weinstein.
Yesterday the foundation forged important links with a black-owned laboratory in Durban through its AHF Global Immunity, which is a non-profit, international arm of the organisation.
The object of the collaboration is to drastically reduce the cost and the time it takes to monitor people on ARVs.
Weinstein said that if the war against HIV/AIDS could not be won in KwaZulu-Natal, which is often viewed as the epicentre of the world pandemic, then it could not be won at all.
He said the organisation, which was working in six countries across the globe, intended to extend its activities to 30 governments eventually.
Weinstein said the rate of adherence to ARVs in the United States was less than 50%.
However, at Umlazi - where the clinic was part of the Network of AIDS Communities in South Africa - it was above 95% because people were seeing so many of their friends and relations dying from AIDS-related illnesses.
Contact between Weinstein and the clinic at Umlazi was initiated because the founder of the Umlazi medical facility, Swazi Mlaba, sought the foundation president out at the 2000 World AIDS Conference in Durban. |
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