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The Congress of South African Trade Unions warmly welcomes today’s announcement by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe that all people with HIV with CD4 counts below 350 cells/mm3 are to be offered antiretroviral (ARV) treatment.
The present guidelines only make provision for ARVs for such people if they are “vulnerable”, such as pregnant mothers or those with active TB. All other patients have to wait until their CD4 counts fall below 200 cells/mm3.
This is another milestone in the battle to roll back the deadly HIV epidemic. If these new guidelines are effectively implemented, it will improve the quality of life of many people with HIV. It will reduce deaths; a study in Lesotho found that patients who started treatment above a 200-count were 68% less likely to die than those who only started treatment when their count fell below 200.

The expanded ARV rollout will also cut new opportunist HIV-related infections like tuberculosis or pneumonia, thus saving more lives, and saving both patients and the health system time and money.
COSATU applauds the government decision to budget R5 billion for the first year of treatment, with another billion rand added in the next financial year, and on the assurance that the ARV programme will be integrated into the future National Health Insurance.

We must not however be complacent, given that 5.38 million South Africans are still estimated to be living with HIV, and that the number of new HIV infections for 2011 for those 15-years or older is estimated at 316,900. The challenge is to make sure that all those now entitled to ARVs receive them regularly and that the rate of new infections is drastically cut.