This is an archive of the Treatment Action Campaign's public documents from
December 1998 until October 2008. I created this website because the TAC's
website appears unmaintained and people were concerned that it
was becoming
increasingly hard to find important documents.
The menu items have
been slightly edited and a new stylesheet applied to the site. But none of the
documents have been edited, not even for minor errors. The text appears on this
site as obtained from the Internet Archive.
The period covered by
the archive encompassed the campaign for HIV medicines, the civil disobedience
campaigns, the Competition Commission complaints, the 2008 xenophobic violence
and the PMTCT, Khayelitsha health workers and Matthias Rath court cases.
                 Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Department of Health, and
                 thank you for coming here at such short notice.
                 The National HIV Sero-prevalence Survey of Women attending public antenatal
                 clinics in South Africa, is a yearly survey. The Directorate Health Systems
                 Research, Research Co-ordination and Epidemiology have conducted it, since
                 1990.
                 The epidemiological profile shows that HIV continues to be a very serious
                 health
                 problem in South Africa.
                 The national HIV prevalence rate for 1999 is 22.4%.
                 This is substantially the same as the 1998 rate, which was 22.8%. This
                 means that
                 both fall within the same confidence limits.
                 From the study findings we estimated that there were approximately 4.2
                 million
                 people infected with HIV in South Africa at the end of 1999.
                 Women in their twenties continue to have the highest HIV prevalence rates.
                There
                is a trend towards slightly lower HIV prevalence rates amongst teenage girls
                for
               1999 than there were in 1998. On the other hand HIV prevalence was slightly
                higher in the 30 to 34 year old group and in the 35 to 39 year old group.
                HIV prevalence has increased in five provinces.
               Three provinces namely, KwaZulu Natal, Northern Cape and Northern Province
                have prevalence rates that have not increased from 1998. The 1999 findings
                suggest that South Africa may be seeing a shift in the epidemiological
                profile of HIV,
                in which a small degree of ‘stabilisation’ may be occurring. In essence,
                this means
                that there is not a generalised HIV increase in all geographic areas.
                Stabilisation does not necessarily mean that fewer cases of HIV infection
                are
                occurring, or that there is necessarily a change in HIV incidence, though
                this may
                be a contributing factor. Other factors may include higher mortality
                amongst HIV
                infected individuals, fewer pregnancies amongst women with HIV and so on.
                Other
                supporting data and HIV incidence studies are required to confirm the
                stabilisation
                factor.
                Over the years, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, for example, have
                consistently remained at the extreme ends of HIV prevalence levels. While
                findings
                from the 1999 antenatal HIV survey confirm these trends, they also
                underscore the
                fact that our attention needs to be drawn not as much to the levels of HIV
                infection,
               as to the pace at which the epidemic is progressing within provinces.
               Hence, although KwaZulu-Natal remains the province with the highest
               prevalence
               rate, no increase is shown in this province between 1998 and 1999. In
               contrast,
               the Western Cape, whilst remaining the province with the lowest level of
               infection,
               shows a 36.5% increase from 5.2% in 1998 to 7.1% in 1999.
               People in their twenties constitute more than 50% of the infected population
               in South
               Africa. This has tremendous impact on the social fabric of the country and
               on its
               economy, as this age category represents the youngest portion of our
               productive
               class. Knowing one’s HIV status has been proven (with appropriate support
               and
               counselling) to change behavioural risk in favour of safer sex practices.
               In the light of this, we need to encourage people of all age categories to
               go for
               voluntary testing and counselling for HIV, as a means to effectively
               promoting safe
               sex practices.
               As we loose breadwinners, child survival is re-emerging as one of the
               critical areas
               of care and support. It is also arising, not only as a health issue, but
               very much as a
               welfare and social problem too. It can therefore only be successfully dealt
               with,
               through inter-sectoral collaboration and social mobilisation, as in many
               cases the
               survival of an HIV infected child will be complicated by the fact that
               he/she would
               also be an orphan.
               The figures for the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in our country are a very serious
                issue
                for government. We will, through the South African National AIDS Council,
                and all
                our partnerships against AIDS, both national and international, redouble our
                efforts
                to prevent the further spread of the disease, and to provide care and
               support for
               those infected and affected by it.
               BACK HOME
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