Department of Health and blood-bank data does not reflect the HIV/Aids status of South Africa’s gay community, a Western Cape lobby group said on Friday.
”South Africa does not have valid information on the HIV infection rate in the gay community,” said Triangle Project spokesperson Glen de Swardt. ”People point fingers at gays as a high-risk HIV/Aids group when it suits them.”
De Swardt was reacting to the South African National Blood Transfusion Service’s (SANBTS) recent decision to exclude all sexually active homosexual men from donating blood.
In South Africa, ””we don’t know what we are dealing with in the gay community”, said De Swardt.
”We don’t know how well our safer-sex, HIV-prevention strategies are shaping up. How can we when we don’t have a baseline measurement to work from?”
Department of Health data on HIV prevalence is based on pregnant women attending antenatal clinics, he said.
”And the northern-hemisphere model is not applicable to us. In South Africa, most people with HIV/Aids are straight. They are heterosexual,” he added.
However, the Triangle Project will not be asking the department to survey the gay community.
”It will be incumbent on the gay community and its organisations to do something about it,” he said.
De Swardt accused SANBTS head Dr Robert Crookes of choosing to pathologise the gay community.
”He should highlight the risk of anal sex, yes, irrespective of the sexual orientation of the people involved.”
Everyone who engages in anal sex or fellatio — not only gays — should be excluded from donating blood.
”HIV and Aids infects and affects people, irrespective of their age, race, gender or sexual orientation.”
The project contends that the stance taken by the SANBTS is ”prejudiced and homophobic and contributes further to the stigmatisation and marginalisation of the gay community”.
The SANBTS announced on Thursday that it will not accept blood from men who have engaged in oral or anal sex in the past five years — safely or not.
It claims that international medical reports indicate that men who have sex with men show increased risk of infection with HIV and other blood infections. — Sapa