Cape Town — The South African government has moved to end the years-long controversy over its policies on HIV and AIDS by unveiling the outline of a four-year national strategic plan to cut the rate of new infections by half and provide packages of treatment, care and support for 80 percent of those living with HIV.
The details of the plan will be finalised in the next year, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka announced at a World AIDS Day event at KaNyamazane, in Mpumalanga province today. The latest draft of a "broad framework" document agreed upon by the South African National Aids Council was released to coincide with her speech.
Mlambo-Ngcuka, acting in her capacity as chair of the council, has become the lead figure in new government efforts to fight HIV and AIDS. She has reached out to groups in civil society, such as the activists of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), who were at loggerheads with Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang over the health ministry's approach to the crisis.
Tshabalala-Msimang, who was recently hospitalised, has been booked off work as ill and has played little public role in current developments – although she issued a statement on World Aids Day today.
The TAC, responding to Mlambo-Ngcuka's initiative to open a dialogue with the government's critics, recently declared that the "eight year struggle to end government HIV denialism and confusion has ended."
The framework document declared as its first key priority area: "Reduce by 50% the rate of new HIV infections by 2011." Among its objectives is to persuade young people between 14 and 17 not to become sexually active.
"Younger people should delay their sexual debut and abstain," Mlambo-Ngcuka said today. "And when people do become sexually active, they should use condoms consistently. We should all avoid having multiple and concurrent sexual partners - let us commit to being faithful by sticking to one sexual relationship at a time."
Another objective of the framework is to reduce the rate of incidence among children under five years, and to provide anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant women.
The document bluntly acknowledged that the impact of HIV and AIDS on individuals and households was "enormous." It said: "AIDS has been cited as the major cause of premature deaths, with mortality rates increasing by about 79% in the period 1997-2004, with a much higher increase in women than in men… Increases in maternal and childhood mortality are some of the devastating impacts, threatening the country's ability to realise the millennium goals targets of 2015."
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Mlambo-Ngcuka made a strong appeal in her speech for a united response to HIV and AIDS. "If we focus our energies on… differences between us," she said, "We will lose sight of our shared goals and weaken collective resolve and effort to implement this plan… Nothing less than a formidable partnership between government and civil society can assist us to achieve our goal of reversing the tide of this pandemic."
Related:
Broad Frame-Work for HIV & AIDS and STI Strategic Plan for South Africa: 2007-2011, 1 December 2006
