Those involved in the fight against HIV and Aids have to work together, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Friday.
”We have to make sure that our energy is dedicated to the fight against HIV and Aids and not against each other,” she told a civil society Aids congress in Johannesburg.
She also called for the primary health care sector to be rebuilt and for more human resources to be made available.
Her plea for unity echoed statements made by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the ministry of health.
She said a restructuring of the South African National Aids Council (Sanac) should allow for it to represent religious groups, health professionals and women. The body should be used to ”protect unity and manage our differences” in the fight against HIV/Aids.
Cosatu president Willie Madisha asked the government to end its self-congratulatory attitude on its policies.
”We need to stop perpetuating self-praise that says ours are the best policies in the world … what has got to happen is implementation.”
He called for unity between the TAC and the National Association of People Living with Aids and said conflict between them was wasting energy.
In her speech, Deputy Minister of Health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was frank about the government’s progress on fighting the disease. She said while ”tremendous efforts” were being made and resources invested to fight HIV/Aids, there were still unacceptably high levels of new infections and deaths.
While a lot of money had gone into condom distribution, the impact this was making was not known. The implementation of programmes to prevent mother-to-child transmission had been ”most uneven”. Some provinces showed positive trends while others had performed dismally, she said.
A high teenage pregnancy rate also revealed the ”huge challenge” of changing the behaviour of young people.
The strain resulting from a growing burden of disease and staff shortages would require honesty in speaking about problems. These included a shortage of doctors, nurses and pharmacists, infrastructure problems and collaboration with other departments — particularly correctional services. The Traditional Healers Council had also not been established and marketing the ”comprehensive plan” was inadequate.
A recent study by the Health Systems Trust had also shown a very low level of HIV treatment literacy among South Africans.
In a briefing after her speech she told journalists that her ministry had had an ”up and down” relationship with the TAC.
”We cannot afford to antagonise anybody and are taking steps to improve relationships with civil society.”
She said government was ”very clear” that nutrition could not replace medicines, but was interested in learning how alternative remedies could help fight opportunistic infections.
”We have started the process of putting these so-called remedies under scientific scrutiny.”
Cosatu’s general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said Madlala-Routledge’s speech had been ”brilliant”.
Although the country was now ”marching behind a single message”, he said the days of toyi-toying were not over.
He said the union federation would no longer hold marches complaining about ”potatoes and other matters”, but would instead focus its public actions on greater access to Aids treatment and cheaper medicines.
”We will go to Sanac, listen to government’s proposals and support them,” he said.
TAC general secretary Sipho Mtati said the organisation was committed to building unity with everybody, particularly with those with whom it had had differences in the past.
She called for a minimum of transparency, integrity and accountability in government on efforts to fight the disease.
While the health department had in the past ”squandered its primary resource” (the organisations present at the congress), she appealed to it to work with them ”on the basis of honesty”.
TAC leader Zackie Achmat welcomed the health ministry’s admission that it had difficulties in fighting HIV/Aids.
”We believe that the deputy president and the deputy health minister are showing a willingness to listen … Probably the most important thing [to emerge from the speeches] was a commitment to bold but achievable goals,” he said. — Sapa