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Date: 25/03/2004
Source: Democratic Alliance
Title: T Leon: “Across the nation, the ANC has broken its promises on HIV/Aids”


  TEMBISA, GAUTENG – THURSDAY 25 MARCH 2004 South Africa must take urgent action to care for the 700 000 Aids orphans in our country today, and to prevent more children from losing their parents to Aids.

That is why the Coalition for Change is so important today. The Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party have led the way in the fight against HIV/Aids.

Last year, UNICEF estimated that there were 662 000 Aids orphans in South Africa. That number continues to rise, largely because of the ANC government’s failure to launch a national rollout of anti-retroviral drugs.

Here in Tembisa, we have seen how the Good Hope Centre is caring for Aids orphans, as well as other people living with Aids. Twelve Aids orphans live in the centre itself.

Flora Mohano, who directs the Good Hope Centre, receives no fixed income for her work. She does it out of compassion and conviction.

But there are hundreds of thousands more Aids orphans that have not yet been reached. Many are forced to lead their families and raise their own siblings.

Few of these children receive any kind of assistance from the government. Aids orphans, in fact, are falling through the cracks of South Africa’s social grant system.

Since only a parent or guardian over the age of 18 can claim the child support grant, orphaned children are excluded. In the case of the foster care grant, a child has to be formally placed in foster care through the children’s court before the grant is awarded.

This process is cumbersome enough for families that are headed by an adult. For child-headed households it is an impossible obstacle.

Through parliamentary questions, the Democratic Alliance established last year that only 21 percent of orphaned children are able to access foster child grants.

The DA has suggested new and creative solutions for addressing the needs of Aids orphans. We believe that Orphan Support Committees should be created across South Africa to provide free services to orphans in order to help them obtain grants, gain access to education, and receive trauma counselling and support. We have also suggested legislation that would enable orphans under the age of 18 to access the child support grant.

We do not want to create a system of entitlements that will encourage children to head their own families. But we must begin to build a social safety net that can help children in desperate circumstances.

Experts predict that by 2015, the number of Aids orphans in South Africa will grow to over 1,85-million. We can quote other estimates that are higher or lower. But we must remember that behind each statistic is a human being, a child vulnerable to the dangers of life on the streets, a child needing love and support. That is where places like the Good Hope Centre have such an important role to play.

While we care for Aids orphans, we must also fight the disease itself. And that means that we must provide people with the anti-retroviral medicines that they so desperately need.

There is no cure for Aids. But anti-retrovirals can turn a death sentence into a new lease on life.

In 2002, there were approximately 1,5 million HIV-infected people living in Gauteng. Recently, the Gauteng provincial government announced that it would begin to supply anti-retroviral drugs at provincial hospitals beginning on 1 April.

The Democratic Alliance welcomes this programme. It is long overdue. We wonder why it has taken the provincial government so long, and why it is introducing Aids drugs right before the elections.

Across the nation, the ANC has broken its promises on Aids. The ANC government announced in November that it would provide anti-retrovirals to 53 000 HIV-positive people by 31 March 2004, and over 180 000 people by 31 March 2005. However, now the ANC admits that it will not meet these targets.

Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, after being prompted by repeated threats of legal action, has finally announced after a Minmec meeting that she will allow the government to purchase an interim supply of anti-retroviral drugs. This, she promises, will enable facilities that are ready to provide the drugs to do so without waiting for the government’s ever-delayed tender process to be finalised.

Whether the Minister will finally keep one of her promises remains to be seen.

She promised in November that in addition to beginning a rollout of anti-retrovirals by March, she would provide CD4 counts for over 200,000 people, recruit 1 786 new staff, and provide nutritional support for defined patient groups by April 2004. None of these promises are on track. They are all being broken.

Last month the Minister announced that she would “wean our people from anti-retrovirals”—and this, of course, long before any roll-out had even begun.

Now the Minister is attacking pharmaceutical companies that provide anti-Aids drugs. These companies are upset at the way she is proposing to use regulations to fix the prices of drugs.

The price of medicine has become far too high, but the way to control the problem is not to fix prices but to increase competition in the market, and to exempt drugs on the Essential Drugs list from Value Added Tax.

The DA warned the Minister back in January that her top-down approach could have negative results for South African patients. Our predictions may, sadly, be coming true.

The government promised a roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs in August 2003. That was more than seven months ago. The people of South Africa are still waiting.

It remains clear that the best hope for people living with HIV/Aids is to be resident in a province where a party other than the ANC is in government, or where the ANC faces significant and real opposition.

It is no accident that the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were the first two provinces to take the lead on providing Aids drugs. Gauteng, where the DA and IFP both have a strong presence, has followed suit.

We must recognise that we are now fighting an all-out war against HIV/Aids, in which more than a million of our compatriots have died. To win this war, we must mobilise every resource that we possibly can.

The Coalition for Change that stands here today has a proven track record in fighting HIV/Aids. And from the front lines, we can tell you that this is not a war that can be won with weapons or diplomacy. It must be won with medicine, with education, and most of all with love.

South Africa’s challenge in the years ahead is a great one indeed. The disease has already infected so many millions, and we are working with very limited resources. But we can do it.

South Africa has triumphed over difficult odds before. With the right leadership in place, we will do so again.

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