"Stop Aids: Leadership and Unity"
Congress of South African Trade Unions November 29, 2008
http://www.cosatu.org.za/hiv.htm
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is calling
upon all its members and all South Africans to join the
30-minute national work stoppage at mid-day on Monday 1
December 2008 - World AIDS Day, the 20th anniversary of this day.
COSATU has joined the Government, the SA National Aids
Council (SANAC), the Treatment Action Campaign - and
the Nedlac government, business, labour and community
constituencies - in a united campaign to raise
awareness about HIV/AIDS and TB.
Workplaces, businesses, schools, churches and
communities will stop whatever they are doing at 12h00.
Motorists are asked to put on their headlights and pull
over. Churches will ring their bells. This is the first
time in the history of the HIV epidemic in
that every major sector has united for a common purpose.
We will begin at mid-day with a minute of silence, to
remember all those we have lost to the AIDS pandemic
and then talk about how we are going to recommit
ourselves to the fight to stop HIV and TB infections
and deaths from AIDS, get the prevention message across
and ensure that ARV treatment is made available for all
who need it.
Every day 1,000 people are dying from AIDS-related
infections, and another 1,450 people are becoming HIV
infected. 60 000 babies are born with HIV every year.
With the young and working age dying in droves, South
in a terrible war.
At least 70% of the case load in the public health
system is now taken up by HIV/ AIDS cases, crowding out
the capacity to treat other medical conditions.
Moreover, while we still cannot treat more than half
the 800,000 needing anti-retroviral treatment now, that
number is going to rise to 5,5 million within five
years, as people already HIV infected reach full-blown AIDS.
The shortage of antiretroviral treatment (ART) in the
rights to life and to health. On Monday Government must
account for why these shortages have come about and how
they can be prevented in the future. Government must
also implement plans for immediate interventions to end these shortages.
One of the targets of the National Strategic Plan (NSP)
is to reduce the number of new HIV infections by 50% by
2011. On Monday we need to discuss whether this and the
other targets set out in the NSP are being met, how
well is government and SANAC, the body guiding the NSP,
implementing and monitoring its targets at the primary healthcare level?
Everyone has the right to receive the life-saving
treatments they need. Scaling-up ART and Prevention of
Mother-to-Child Transmission programmes, which still
fails to reach 40% of women, must be national
priorities beyond the limitations of a one-day celebration.
Questions to ask during the 30 minutes
Among the questions we are urging people to ask
themselves during the stoppage are:
- Have I tested for HIV? If not, why not?
- Have I talked to my family and children about
preventing HIV? If not, why not?
- Do I understand about HIV medicines and how they
work?
- How can I stop discrimination?
- How can I give leadership - at home, at work, at
school?
COSATU calls on all of our leaders and citizens to
follow the fine example of its Central Executive
Committee members on 25 November, and get tested for
HIV. Get tested, get treated!
We have to turn the tide! 1 December 2008 must become
the turning point in stopping HIV infections and deaths
in
Although events are being held across the country,
these are some of the most important, all starting at
12h00:
DURBAN, Sahara Stadium: National rally, addressed by
the Deputy President Baleka Mbete, Health Minister
Barbara Hogan, and United Nations AIDS Executive
Director, Dr Peter Piot, which is expected to be
covered live by SABC.
addressed by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi,
who will then go to the rally at
followed by:
- 12h30-13h00: Human chain in commemoration of those
infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, stretching from
- 13h00-14h00: Health Expo, blood pressure checks,
cholesterol tests, etc at SACTWU Hall and
- 14h00-16h00: Launch of the HIV/AIDS code of Good Practice.
By Tom Burgis
Financial Times
November 29 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c0b1050c-bdb7-11dd-bba1-0000779fd18c.html
of the fight against HIV today as the Aids epidemic,
which spread almost unchecked under the previous
government, unleashes what its senior trade unionist
describes as a holocaust.
Barbara Hogan, the new health minister, will use a
visit to one of the hardest-hit townships in
Johannesburg to announce that the UK, a big health
donor, is to resume significant support for the
government's anti-HIV programme with an initial £15m
(euro 18m, $23m).
The move's symbolism is important when every day Aids
adds 600 more dead to the 2.5m people already killed.
of Thabo Mbeki, the previous president, were
responsible for 365,000 additional deaths as people
were denied anti-retroviral drugs and other treatment.
It is nine years since Mr Mbeki began his catastrophic
embrace of dissident scientists who denied that HIV
causes Aids, while his health minister, Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang, espoused herbal remedies and
traditional healers instead of conventional medicine.
"For too long
its hands tied behind its back," said Ivan Lewis, the
UK development minister, during a visit to
to launch the scheme. "Those ties have now been removed."
Today up to 6m people - one in eight South Africans -
are estimated to be HIV positive. No other country has
a higher total.
When Ms TshabalalaMsimang departed in September, along
with the rest of the administration, Aids activists
popped champagne corks. Now their main concern is
whether Ms Hogan, one of the few people in the ruling
African National Congress who resisted the party's
stultifying denial of HIV/Aids, will stay on when the
interim administration goes next year.
Ms Hogan spent eight years in prison for resisting
apartheid; now she may face a still greater challenge.
As Molefi Sefularo, her deputy, told the FT, HIV
thrives in an economy marked by one of the world's
widest gaps between rich and poor. That manifests
itself in scenes such as that round the back of one of
lead young girls to a rickety motel.
"It's transactional sex, the sugar daddy syndrome,"
said Zwelinzima Vavi, head of Cosatu, the trade union
federation, before vanishing into a booth to take an
HIV test to mark World Aids Day on Monday. "Infection
is not slowing . . . We are going deeper and deeper
into a holocaust."
A culture of obstruction remains. "What used to happen
was that [the health ministry] would get all the money
they need but they'd never spend it," said Alan
Whiteside, an expert in health economics at the
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment