Logo Parade
Nutrition
Medicine
Exercise
Complementary
Professional and Personal Alliances
Quality of Life
Message from White House
Sponsors
HIV & Conference News
Founders Speak Out
Hope In Africa
Internet and Community Resources
Dosing Chart
Survey
Free Subscriptions
Copyright Information
Back Issues On Line
Letters to the Editor
Patients Assistance Program
Sponsorship and Media Guide
Enter Keywords

 

 

UKWETHEMBA

BOTSWANA Faces AIDS Nightmare

Kelvin GlenNumedx.com (South Africa), Barry Baxter in Gaborone, and Laurice Taitz in Johannesburg

A REPORT on AIDS in Botswana says that within 10 years the life expectancy of the countrys citizens will be reduced to 31 years for men and 30 years for women.

The report, prepared by the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis and funded by the Botswana government and the United Nations Development Program, was handed to the government this week, but has yet to be made public. It paints a picture of the impact of AIDS that is even more terrifying than earlier predictions, which already named Botswana as having the highest per capita rate of infection in the world.

Experts said such dramatic drops in life expectancy were unprecedented outside of wars, and that unless governments moved to counter the epidemic, the "devastation will exceed anything yet seen on this continent."

The report states:

" Half of all households have at least one member who is infected with HIV.

" The population will be 31% smaller by 2021 than it would have been without AIDS.

" The economy will shrink by between 24% and 38%.

" A life expectancy of between 30 and 31 years for men and 30 years for women is predictedless than half the life expectancy for men and women in 1990 before the AIDS epidemic started.

" The number of orphans will increase dramatically, going up to between 160,000 and 214,000 by 2010.

" In 10 years, 37% of economically active people between 15 and 59 will be HIV-positive.

The report comes as Botswana president Festus Mogae warned that his countrymen face "extinction." It also coincides with the countrys 34th celebration of independence, in which time it has become one of the richest in Southern Africa.

But according to the report, this will soon change unless the epidemic is reversed. It suggests there will be a rapid increase in the number of very poor households, with a huge burden on those who survive to support relatives of AIDS victims.

Its So Easy to Save Our AIDS Babies

Laurice Taitz

Defying national policy, the Western Capes program leads the way in preventing kids from getting HIV from their mothers

Cynthia Ndlovu just cannot stop smiling. Minutes ago she was given test results showing that her nine-month-old son is not infected with HIV. It was the answer to months of prayer.

"I tried to tell myself I would accept whatever happens, but I wondered how Id be able to deal with him being HIV-positive," she says. The shy, soft-spoken 24 year old is attending a weekly support group for HIV-positive women at the Matthew Goniwe Clinic in Khayelitsha, a sprawling township 30 km outside Cape Town.

Ndlovu was diagnosed as HIV-positive soon after falling pregnant. "I thought it was the end of my world," she says.

She had volunteered to be tested as part of a program to prevent mother-to-child transmission that is run by the Western Capes Department of Health. The program offers voluntary HIV testing and counseling at nine prenatal clinics in the township. Women who test positive for the virus are offered a four-week course of the antiretroviral drug AZT.

With no intervention, one in three babies born to HIV-positive mothers will be infected; many will not live beyond two years. But research has shown that an R350 short course of AZT coupled with no breastfeeding cuts that risk in half.

The program, started in Khayelitsha in January of last year, is the only one of its kind in South Africa. Introduced under the leadership of then National Party MEC for Health Pieter Marais, it contravenes national policy. In October 1998, the Cabinet decided to pull the plug on AZT pilot projects. The then Minister of Health, Dr Nkosazana Zuma, said that they were not cost-effective.

Two years later, South Africa has earned the ignoble distinction of having one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. And while reams of evidence indicate that it is cheaper to prevent transmission than to treat infected babies, the government has not budged.

For Western Cape Health MEC Nick Koornhof, the program is a source of pride. Unfazed by accusations that his Democratic Alliance government is trying to score political points, he says: "As long as you offer nothing, people will remain in denial and HIV/AIDS will carry a huge social stigma. The Western Cape is light years ahead and soon we will go further."

Khayelitsha was chosen after a prenatal survey showed that HIV was epidemic theredespite the fact that the Western Cape has the lowest infection rate (7%) in the country.

"We at the forefront of this disease need to be proactive," says Sister Lindeka Matinise of the midwife obstetric unit at Michael Mapongwana Clinic. "We see what we are doing as part of a service dealing with a disease thats here to stay."

Lokiwe Mtwazi, head of health services for the city of Tygerberg, says the teething problems were numerous.

"At first there was poor communication, and all decisions were imposed from the top. Then came Phase Two. In January, we evaluated the program and restructured it. Now those responsible for implementing it run it."

Mtwazi says: "As problems have arisen, we have developed solutions." For example, instead of using laboratory tests administered at crowded day hospitals, which take days to get results, clinic nurses are now trained to give rapid 10-minute tests; this also overcomes the problem of women not returning for results.

"We wanted to improve the service, to ensure that the women using it are not constantly confronted with a different face," says program co-ordinator Nomthandazo Mgqweto.

Babies are tested at nine months and again at 18 months to confirm the results. They are treated to prevent opportunistic infections from birth, but this ends if they test negative at nine months. Mothers are advised not to breastfeed and are given free milk formula.

Medecins sans Frontieres, the Nobel-prize winning aid organization, has opened an office and three doctor-based HIV clinics in Khayelitsha since April.

Before their arrival, Mgqweto says, "staff were concerned, saying what are we going to do with those who are infected? We test them and then we leave them."

Eric Goemare of Medecins sans Frontieres says: "It should be a right of every pregnant woman to have the test and get AZT if they are positive. You dont control HIV/AIDS only by treatment. But as soon as people know theres access to care, you start to break the vicious cycle of denial, and introduce hope."

So far, 73% of pregnant women in Khayelitsha have chosen to be tested. Of those 8,000 women, 1,300 are HIV-positive.

Mgqweto says: "Through giving people a sense of ownership and through teamwork, we have switched this from being perceived as an additional burden to a source of pride."

Recently Koornhof announced plans to extend the program to five more sites at a cost of about R6 million. He says: "Its a small extra allocation in our budget which will save close on 1,000 babies a year. Thats three Red Cross Childrens hospitals full. We are proceeding slowly so we can get a feel [for] the impact. This is a first for us, and were determined to get it right. Besides saving babies, we are sending a message that says: Accept these people, assist these people, love these people."

He says he has taken the message of former President Nelson Mandela to heart.

"He warned us at the AIDS conference in Durban, saying: We have to rise above our differences and combine our efforts to save our people. History will judge us harshly if we fail to do so now, and right now."

MBEKI Links AIDS to US Drug Conspiracy

Carol Paton and Carmel Rickard

PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki told the ANCs caucus meeting in Parliament on Thursday that he believed the emphasis placed on the HIV/AIDS epidemic was the result of a conspiracy by US drug firms.

He was speaking as the Constitutional Court ruled that HIV causes AIDS. The finding is in stark contrast to the position of the government, according to which there is doubt that one leads directly to the other.

The ruling on HIV was in a judgment stating that South African Airways had acted unlawfully by refusing a job to an applicant who had tested positive for HIV. But ANC MPs told the Sunday Times that Mbeki had said the world had embraced the conventional wisdom on AIDS because pharmaceutical companies were "keen on the thesis."

He had said the US wanted Africa to buy its drugs to increase its indebtedness. Another MP said that Mbeki "was not as explicit as all that. Obviously, there is an argument that it suits pharmaceutical companies to promote the theory that HIV causes AIDS, because then you need drugs, not development," he said.

Mbeki is also said to have restated an old dissident theory that HIV, the virus, could not be isolated. He told the caucus that the Treatment Action Campaign, a lobby group for antiretroviral drugs for pregnant women, was funded by drug companies and had infiltrated the trade unions.

According to Judge Sandile Ngcobo, who wrote the Constitutional Court decision, "the devastating effects of HIV infection and the widespread lack of knowledge about it have produced a deep anxiety and considerable hysteria."

Numedx South Africa Satellite Office

Numedx.com is proud to announce the opening of our satellite office in Durban, South Africa. Numedx.com will now be covering AIDS in Africa in every issue, We are proud and honored to welcome Kelvin Glen, a native South African, as our correspondent and editor for this important department.

Back to top | back to Ukwethemba
CVS ProCare Pharmacies BMS Virology Roche Laboratories GlaxoSmithKline Ortho-Biotech Roche Diagnostics