Aids activists will on Tuesday set up hundreds of chairs outside Parliament, hoping to lure MPs to engage with civil society on challenges the country faces in fighting the pandemic.
”In front of Parliament we will have 450 chairs, one for each member of Parliament, to come meet with the public on the issue of HIV. We hope MPs will take up our offer,” the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said in a statement.
Tuesday’s protest is the latest in a series of actions calling for the government to heed the TAC’s five demands — convening a national meeting and plan for the HIV/Aids crisis; ending deaths in prison; dismissing health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang; respecting the Constitution and building a people’s health service.
”We will ask MPs to put pressure on the department of health to amend the ARV [antiretroviral] site accreditation process which is acting as a bottleneck to access to treatment,” TAC said.
Protesters were expected to demonstrate with 110 crosses to represent the 110 deaths at Westville prison last year, while others will carry boards highlighting the more than 1 000 new HIV infections daily in the country.
Tuesday’s event apparently coincided with the monthly correctional services portfolio meeting. The march aimed to highlight the need for the committee to pressurise the Department of Correctional Services to develop an HIV plan for all prisons and to ”seriously” address HIV infections in prisons.
Meanwhile, David Beetge, the Anglican church’s liaison bishop for HIV and Aids, urged all concerned to seek a new multi-sectoral partnership to address the disease.
”No-one can tackle this one single-handedly. We need a sustained and united effort to work towards a generation without Aids,” Beetge said in a statement.
Beetge urged government and NGOs, including the TAC, to put behind them past conflict and differences.
He said the only way forward was for all spheres of government, academics, the medical profession, pharmaceutical industry and civil society to unite and address the pandemic together.
”I further call for a national consultation, which will include all sectors, to address it.
”I also call on Sanac [South African National Aids Council] to include all sectors and to meet on a regular basis so that this pandemic can be addressed by a united response within the country,” Beetge said.
He is the second most senior bishop in the Anglican Church in Southern Africa after Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane.
South Africa features among the world’s countries with the highest incidence of HIV/Aids, with UNAids and the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimating that the disease claimed 320 000 lives in 2005 — more than 800 every day. – Sapa