TAC forms a branch at University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Friday, May 03, 2002 Judith King HIVAN Media Office
An assembly of interested students and staff at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Durban campus was addressed by Mark Heywood, founder member of TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) and head of the AIDS Law Project, in March 2002. The forum was organised by UKZN's newly established Centre for Civil Society as a preparatory meeting focused on forging closer ties between TAC and the University community.
Heywood began by recommending the reading of the comprehensive statistical reports on the AIDS epidemic in Africa that have been issued by the SA Medical Research Council, Statistics South Africa and the Health Systems Trust. He echoed the primary message of these sources in describing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly in southern and South Africa, and even more so in KwaZulu-Natal, as "an enormous crisis".
"However," he urged, "we can do something. There are drugs available to lower the rate of transmission of the virus from mother-to-child, to minimise the viral load in infected patients, and to treat and relieve the symptoms of opportunistic infections associated with AIDS. What is imperative is that our society understands and fights for all people in the world to be valued equally. Africans deserve the same rights as everyone else to have access to these treatments."
Heywood cited Brazil as an example of a developing country that, over a five-year period, has emerged as a "success story" in its struggle against the epidemic, saying that as a result of political will and social commitment on the part of its leadership, Brazil reports a 50% decline in AIDS mortality rates, and has documented similarly dramatic drops in the costs of treating opportunistic diseases and in hospice care for AIDS patients. "Why can't we do that here?" was his challenge.
Putting the Treatment Action Campaign's principles into perspective, Heywood emphasised that TAC is not "fixated" on antiretroviral drugs as the sole solution to the crisis of HIV infection. "We also fight to improve the country's health structures as a whole," he explained, "and we actively promote Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) programmes as our ideal premise for intervention - in fact, VCT forms part of TAC's basic philosophy in terms of combating the spread of HIV." ...
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