Shock estimates of HIV infection on campuses have spurred the authorities into action
David Macfarlane
One in five university undergraduates is estimated to be HIV-positive; by 2005 the rate of infection could be as high as one in three. Now university vice-chancellors are mounting an urgent intervention on the pandemic and its threat to the nearly 500 000 students in South African public higher education.
Announcing this week that Professor Njabulo Ndebele will be the new chairperson of the South African Universities Vice-Chancellors’ Association (Sauvca), the association’s CEO, Piyushi Kotecha, also announced that Sauvca has secured more than R12-million in donor funding to mount “a coordinated programme to tackle HIV/Aids” in tertiary institutions over the next 18 months.
Ndebele, who is vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town and will assume his Sauvca position at the beginning of next year, told the Mail & Guardian this is a major initiative on Sauvca’s part.
“We must stem the tide of Aids,” he said. “But the problem won’t go away after 18 months, so we certainly hope to secure further funding to continue the programme.”
A preliminary government study indicates that 22% of undergraduate university students could be HIV-positive; and this could rise to 33% by 2005. The study estimates the infection level among university postgraduates to be 11%, and predicts this rising to 21% by 2005. And nearly 25% of technikon undergraduates are estimated to be HIV-positive rising to about 36% within three years.
The 18- to 30-year-olds who make up the majority of student enrolments are among “the most capable and promising members of all societies”, Kotecha says, and “they represent the future corps of the highly skilled base of any economy”.
But they are also the age group at the highest risk of contracting HIV. Tertiary institutions must prepare for the possibility that “many may arrive at university already infected; others will become infected while at university because of a range of factors that make [tertiary institutions] a focal point of social and sexual interaction”, Kotecha says.
Grants will be awarded to tertiary institutions over an 18-month period, starting next month, to enable them to build the capacity for managing the spread of the pandemic on their campuses. The programme aims in the first place to reach at least 600 people in key positions at universities and technikons who will “lead institutional changes in response to HIV/Aids”, Kotecha says. Institutions will “then be expected to put in place essential services and programmes for students and staff for the prevention, treatment and care of those infected with and affected by HIV/Aids”.
Sauvca initiated a study last year on how tertiary institutions are responding to HIV/Aids, and found critical weaknesses. In some institutions there is still a “persistent culture of silence and denial”, inadequate capacity and resources, a narrow focus on prevention and little institutional planning to anticipate the impact of HIV/Aids, Kotecha says.
But she observes also that some South African institutions are still “world-class leaders in areas such as biomedical research”. She points to Stellenbosch University’s programme on managing Aids in the workplace and Natal University’s HIV/Aids research unit as strengths from which the tertiary sector can draw support in its fight against the pandemic.
Funded by Britain’s Department for International Development, the programme will also involve the Committee of Technikon Principals and the national Department of Education.