OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 7.30pm.
Health Minister Dr Nkosazana Zuma said on Friday that Aids should be a notifiable disease in South Africa, responding to criticism by Aids activist groups about proposed policies they feel will endanger the privacy of Aids sufferers.
She also said attempts should be made to integrate the HIV/Aids “message” into birth control programmes to educate people about the virus and its spread.
Addressing the Cape Town press club, she said many women are aware of birth control methods to prevent unwanted children, but not the fact that condoms can prevent HIV/Aids while the pill or injections can not.
Countries such as Japan, where the pill is banned, have a very low HIV/Aids rate as the main method of birth control is the condom.
The roughly 50% of young South Africans under 18 years who did not abstain from sex were under the false impression they could tell whether their partner had Aids simply by looking at their physical condition, and 85% of them do not use condoms.
Meanwhile the National Aids Convention of South Africa (Nacosa) on Friday said it will use June 2 to mobilise more effective political commitment to address HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal.
Spokeswoman Nomaswazi Mlaba told reporters at a press conference in Durban that Nacosa has launched its election campaign to mobilise political commitment to fight the epidemic. The campaign is aimed at developing relationships between political parties in the province and Nacosa in order to find creative, collaborative ways of addressing the epidemic.
She said the impact of the disease demands that every opportunity be taken to strengthen effective action. Mlaba said the campaign targeted KwaZulu-Natal because the rate of infection and the impact of the epidemic in the province demands action and provincial leadership.
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