By Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 5 2004 (IPS)

AIDS campaigners in South Africa are worried about the apparent lack of progress in implementing a plan to distribute anti-retroviral drugs to millions of people living with the disease.

More than 600 people die every day from AIDS-related illnesses in South Africa, according to HIV/AIDS support groups.

South Africa has one of the highest infection rates in the world: the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says HIV prevalence has risen from “less then one percent to more than 20 percent” in the past 12 years. About five million people are estimated to be living with AIDS.

Campaigners believe many lives could be saved if government were to speed up the distribution of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to state hospitals.

But, Rukia Cornelius of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) – a Cape Town-based pressure group – told IPS this week that TAC officials were experiencing difficulties in obtaining statistics about the ARV plan from South Africa’s Department of Health.

“They (government officials) are playing their cards close to their chests. They are not revealing anything,” she said.

The TAC has been vocal in pressing authorities to make ARV’s widely available, this in the face of scepticism on the part of President Thabo Mbeki about the link between HIV and AIDS.

With the exception of the Western Cape – which has started treatment in at least 13 sites – no province is providing ARV’s at present, said the group in a Jan. 27 statement.

Provincial governments in Gauteng, where Johannesburg is based, and KwaZulu-Natal are taking some steps towards an ARV “rollout”. But, other provinces have made little – if any – information available about their plans, according to the TAC.

“A number of health facilities have been identified as ready to proceed with treatment, but an unjustifiable delay in drug procurement is hindering progress,” the group added.

When it announced the rollout programme last November, government spoke of treating around 50,000 people by Mar. 2004.

But, “As far as can be ascertained, less than 1,500 people have been placed on treatment programmes, nearly all of them in the Western Cape,” the TAC says. Efforts to get comment from the health department on this matter were unsuccessful.

The TAC said it also regretted government’s decision to cut the AIDS budget from 296 million rand (43.1 million dollars) to a paltry 90 million rand (13.1 million dollars) for the financial year ending in March 2004.

Even this reduced funding, it adds, does not appear to have been optimally used: “As far as can be ascertained, none of the 90 rand million has been disbursed to (South Africa’s nine) provinces. Consequently provinces do not have sufficient funds to purchase anti-retrovirals or to get their programmes started while the procurement process is being established.”

Initially the health department planned to triple the AIDS budget from 43.1 million dollars this year to about 460 million dollars within five years.

In remarks that were interpreted by some as conceding a delay in the ARV rollout, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told the “Official 14th Annual South African Health Care Structure Symposium” earlier this month that South Africa was “now ready to implement the Comprehensive Programme for the Treatment, Management and Care of HIV and AIDS.”

In an earlier statement made to mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 last year, she also noted that the treatment was complex and needed careful planning.

“If not taken properly and carefully monitored, they (ARV’s) can have a toxic effect. If misused they can also contribute to the development of new strains of HIV that are resistant to available medicine,” she said.

Last year South Africa’s health and finance ministries conducted a study which found that a person living with HIV/AIDS needed roughly 1,165 dollars to receive treatment annually. This cost was expected to drop as pharmaceutical companies slashed their prices over the coming years.

But, it’s not all bad news on the ARV front. Certain private companies seem to be taking a more active role in providing the drugs to their employees.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, visiting South Africa last month, applauded large German car makers DaimlerChryler, BMW and Volkswagen for making ARV’s available to their workforces. HIV prevalence in these companies is put at between six and nine percent.

Diamond giant De Beers also announced recently that it would pay 90 percent of treatment costs for employees who might otherwise succumb to AIDS-related diseases.

Furthermore, ARV provision is likely to move to the top of the national agenda as campaigning for the upcoming general elections gains momentum.

Just last week, Mangosuthu Buthelezi – leader of the opposition Inkatha Freedom Party – challenged Mbeki to give more prominence to AIDS. (END/IPS/AF/SA/HE/SD/MN/JH/04)

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