The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will demand an intensification of the government’s national mobilisation plan against HIV/Aids at its coming national congress.
”Cosatu has over and over again expressed concern at the lack of clear leadership from the president and [health] minister, and we shall be demanding that the government play the leading role that the crisis demands of them,” spokesperson Patrick Craven said in a statement issued on Friday.
This week, more than 80 scientists called for the immediate removal of Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Craven said that while Cosatu appreciated that the government had adopted the ambitious 2003 Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and Aids Care, Management and Treatment for South Africa programme, a huge gap remained between the plan on paper and its implementation on the ground.
However, he agreed with the scientists that over 500 000 people without access to antiretrovirals (ARVs) had reached the stage of HIV-disease when they now required these medicines to save their lives.
The scientists said the public health sector was treating half the 380 000 number of people it had targeted to offer treatment, Cosatu said.
”There is a clear need to drastically speed up the roll-out of ARVs, the only proven treatment to prolong the lives of people living with HIV/Aids, until they are freely available to all those who need them,” said Craven.
Craven went on to say that Cosatu agreed with the scientists that ”good nutrition is important for all people, including people with HIV, but that garlic, lemons and potatoes are not alternatives to effective medications to treat a specific viral infection and its consequences on the human immune system”.
”The South African government exhibition at the recent United Nations [Aids] Conference in Toronto, which featured garlic, lemons and African potatoes, implied that these dietary elements are alternative treatments for HIV infection, a view for which there is no scientific evidence,” said Craven.
Cosatu said the disease had affected more than five million South Africans and was causing 1 000 new infections and 900 deaths every day. — Sapa