In accordance with labour and health regulations, the state currently provides health workers with anti-retrovirals for needle-stick injuries. However, a statement issued by the African National Congress national executive committee after its weekend meeting said that anti-retrovirals would not be dispensed in public hospitals because the drugs’ efficacy was “unproven” in cases of sexual assault and needle-stick injuries.
Evidence to dispute this claim came this week from Professor Alan Smith, head of virology at the University of Natal and a member of the presidential Aids panel. Smith said the university’s medical school and hospital had encountered seven health workers in 1997 who contracted the virus through needle-stick injuries. The same year the university began providing anti-retrovirals to its employees who sustained such injuries. He said: “To date we have had 1 000 cases of needle-stick injury but none of them have contracted the virus because of the anti-retrovirals provided to them.” Smith cited several studies to back the efficacy of anti-retrovirals in reducing the risk of HIV in instances of sexual assault. Jaspreet Kindra