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The Congress of South African Trade Unions enthusiastically supports the HIV Counselling and Testing Campaign (HCT) which is to be launched, on Sunday 25 April 2010.

Details of the launch are as follows:

§ Venue: Natalspruit Hospital, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng
§ Date: Sunday 25th April 2010
§ Time: From 07h30; main event at 09h00
President Jacob Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe will be joined by senior leaders from all sectors of our society. COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, will be in attendance at the launch, and will volunteer to be tested.

Healthy lifestyle activities will begin at 07h30 and the formal programme will begin at 09h00. Provincial launches of the HCT campaign will take place on Friday 30 April.
Co-hosted by Gauteng province and Ekurhuleni Municipality, the national launch takes the form of a health fair where HIV counselling and testing will be on offer, together with pap smears and TB, anaemia, blood pressure and blood sugar screening.

The event marks the roll-out of the largest HIV counselling and testing campaign the world has seen, aiming to encourage 15 million South Africans to voluntarily test for HIV and learn their HIV status in the coming 14 months. It will run until June 2011, the end of the current National Strategic Plan on HIV, AIDS and STIs (2007-2011).

The campaign, which was announced on 1 December 2009, World Aids Day, will have the theme: I am responsible; We are responsible; and South Africa is taking responsibility. It has three components:
1. I must take responsibility for my own health and HIV Status; i.e. if I am HIV negative, to stay negative, if I am HIV positive, to seek support and services to ensure I am healthy and don't spread the virus to others, be they partners or children.
2. I must take responsibility for enabling those in my sphere of influence to make healthy choices (be they my children, my sexual partners, my employees etc)
3. Government is taking responsibility to ensure quality services are available when people present to test.

We congratulate President Zuma's for his public testing for HIV on 8 April 2010 when he encouraged as many South Africans as possible to do the same. He emphasised several key points that he wants all South Africans to understand. These include:

§ All tests are confidential and private. Everybody's privacy and dignity must be respected by health professionals and the public in general. We must also respect the HIV status of all South Africans, whether positive or negative, and support each other to deal with this epidemic.

§ In case the test results are positive, HIV is no longer a death sentence. That is why we announced new treatment guidelines in December last year, to enable South Africans to live productively with HIV and AIDs in the event of testing positive.

§ We need to work together to fight the stigma attached to the epidemic. We must also address the problem of discrimination through lifting the silence and shame that is associated with the virus and the disease.

COSATU believes the President's actions and remarks demonstrate the significance and importance of the work that we are all doing.

South Africa has the highest number of People Living with HIV - close to 6 million. In 2008, HIV prevalence among women attending antenatal clinics was 29.3%, peaking in Kwa Zulu Natal province at 38.7%. The latest population-based survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council in 2008 shows that women and girls continue to bear the brunt of the epidemic.

South Africa also has the one of the worst tuberculosis (TB) epidemic in the world, with a high burden of disease, incidence and TB/HIV co-infection rates and growing epidemics of multi-drug resistant (MDR - TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR - TB). In South Africa 0.1% of population get TB disease every year. To have any success in curbing the spread of HIV and saving the lives of those infected, South Africa has to succeed in controlling both HIV and TB epidemics.

In recent years there have been important changes in the leadership on HIV and TB, provided by the Government. In 2007 the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) was restructured, including its terms of reference and membership. A new National Strategic Plan (NSP) on AIDS and STIs (2007-2011) was developed with all key stakeholders in government, civil society and the private sector. It had ambitious targets of reaching 80% of those who need to be on ARVs by 2011 and a 50% reduction in new infections by the same time.

Government renewed its commitment to scale up the national HIV response and on World AIDS day, 1st December 2009, the President announced that a campaign to address the HIV epidemic in South Africa would be launched on in April 2010, with the following aims:

1. A massive campaign to mobilise all South Africans to get tested for HIV and to ensure that every South African knows their HIV status.
2. Increased access to treatment for children under one year of age that test positive for HIV. This will contribute significantly towards the quality of life for infected children and reduction of infant mortality
3. Patients presenting with both TB and HIV infection will be initiated on ART if their CD4 count is 350 or less shifting from the old guidelines of initiating treatment when CD4 count is less than 200. TB and HIV will be treated under one roof. 1% of the population has TB and co-infection with TB and HIV is 73%. The policy change will support programmes to reduce deaths arising from undetected TB infection among those living with HIV.
4. All pregnant HIV positive women with a CD4 count of 350 or with symptoms regardless of CD4 count will have access to treatment, a shift from eligibility for treatment when CD4 count is less than 200.
5. All other HIV positive, pregnant women with higher CD4 counts will be put on treatment at fourteen weeks of pregnancy to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.
6. All the health institutions in the country should be able to provide HIV counselling, testing and treatment.
Objectives of the HCT Campaign

§ Mobilize people to know their status.

§ Support people with key prevention messaging in order to take proactive steps to a healthy lifestyle irrespective of HIV status; and

§ Increase incidence of health seeking behaviour

§ Increase the access to treatment, care and support

A total of 15 million people are targeted for HCT by the end of June 2011 in all provinces. The target is every person who is sexually active above 15 years of age (the age for HIV testing consent), which is couples, sexually-active men, commercial sex-workers and men who have sex with men

Other key population groups that must be given a specific attention are: farm workers, mine workers, correctional services, health care workers and managers, high-risk HIV-negative individuals, migrants & refugees, trucking industry, informal settlements, mobile communities & taxis, older men and women,

The importance of expanding the number of clients counselled and tested for HIV comes as a result of the high rate of HIV infected people; over 1200 people become infected with HIV every day.

SANAC considers HCT to be an entry point into HIV prevention, through knowing one's status, and knowing what to do next and through facilitating access to antiretroviral treatment. HCT integrates prevention and treatment, which are the two key mutually-reinforcing pillars of the NSP. HCT is a focused and action-oriented programme that will make widespread social mobilisation possible.