Drop in Aids rates 'a positive sign'
23 July 2007
The fall in HIV/Aids infection rates among pregnant South African women was a positive, albeit preliminary, sign of success in combating the epidemic in the country, Kaiser Family Foundation chief executive Drew Altman said last week.
Preliminary results from the government's annual antenatal survey of pregnant women using public health facilities in the country, released last month, reveal a drop in Aids infection rates for the first time since the inception of the survey.
Altman, who was in Cape Town last week to attend the 2007 Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights ceremony, told Business Day that only next year's survey results would confirm whether the change represented a turning point in the fight against Aids in South Africa.
"But it is welcome news and suggests the need for reinvigorated efforts in prevention and treatment and in sustaining the youth prevention programmes that seem to be making such a difference," he said.
Behavioural changes?
Detailing the preliminary results of the survey earlier this month, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the prevalence of HIV among pregnant women using public hospitals decreased from 30.2% in 2005 to 29.1% in 2006.
Tshabalala-Msimang said the decline in HIV-prevalence among women under the age of 20, from 15.9% in 2005 to 13.7% in 2006, suggested both a possible overall reduction in new infections in the population, as well as a behavioural change among young people in SA.
The government's national strategic plan for HIV/Aids aims to achieve a 50% reduction in new infections by 2011 while providing an appropriate combination of treatment, care and support services to those infected.
Delivering the health department's budget vote in Parliament last month, Tshabalala-Msimang said this package of care included provision of anti-retroviral therapy along with monitoring and evaluation, treatment of opportunistic infections, testing and counselling services, and healthy lifestyle interventions.
Aids plan starts to kick in
Since the start of the government's anti-retroviral treatment programme, more than 282 000 patients had been placed on therapy at 355 accredited facilities around the country, the minister said.
The government has also relaunched its HIV/Aids communication programme Khomanani, allocating R190-million to the programme over the next two years.
Tshabalala-Msimang said the state had distributed more than 439-million male condoms and more than three million female condoms in 2006/07.
The total public sector health budget was increased to R59.2-billion for 2007/08, representing 11% of government spending and just over three percent of South Africa's gross domestic product.
The budget for national tertiary services was increased by R100-million to R5.3-billion, for hospital revitalisation by R200-million to R1.9-billion, and for HIV/Aids by R300-million to R1.9-billion.
The budgets for health professions training and development and forensic pathology services remained unchanged at R1.6-billion and R551-million respectively.
Tshabalala-Msimang said that while some of these increases might appear to be substantial, they had to be considered against a backdrop of historic under-funding of South Africa's health services and the need to eliminate backlogs.
"We need to have significant increases over a long period of time to erode the backlogs and cope with an increasing burden of disease and a growing population," she said.
SouthAfrica.info reporter and BuaNews
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