Pretoria | Monday
While other countries were managing their HIV/Aids epidemics, ”we just seem befuddled”, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said on Monday.
Reacting to a Pretoria High Court judge’s decision on Monday which compels the government to provide nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women at all state hospitals with the capacity to do so, Tutu said: ”There’s no reason, because we have the skills, expertise and resources. So for goodness sakes, stop fiddling.”
Speaking at a World TB (tuberculosis) day meeting at Masiphumelele informal settlement near Noordhoek on the Cape Peninsula, Tutu called on South Africa to look to countries like Uganda which was reversing the Aids pandemic, and to ”get its house in order.”
Tutu said countries poorer than ours were reversing the impact of Aids.
He said South Africa’s HIV/Aids campaign needed ”some urgency” and should not be ”engaging in academic discussions while people are dying.”
Tutu likened the battle against Aids and TB to the fight against apartheid.
”We must fight these diseases with the same passion, the same commitment, the same determination,” he said.
Referring again to the Pretoria High Court decision, he said: ”Thank goodness for the court decision.
”Its been so unnecessary for things to have gone that way at all. We have been made a laughing stock in the world.”
He added: ”I hope the government will abide by the court’s decision. Since we are a democracy I think that is what everyone expects.”
He said what South Africans needed most from the state was a focused campaign so ”we know where we’re going.” – Sapa