Sth African HIV/AIDS death toll jumps 57%

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Aids activists accuse Mbeki as death toll jumps by 57 per cent

By Meera Selva, Africa Correspondent

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=613743

 

 

 

23 February 2005

 

 

Despairing Aids activists have accused the South African government of

failing to deal with the soaring HIV epidemic, after a report indicated that

the number of premature deaths in the country, many of them Aids-related,

rose by 57 per cent over five years. Most of the deaths between 1997 and

2002 were attributed to tuberculosis, influenza and pneumonia, illnesses

caught frequently by Aids patients.

 

Pali Lehohla, head of the government-run Statistics South Africa,

which produced the report, said: " The numbers provide indirect evidence that

the HIV epidemic in South Africa is raising the mortality levels of

prime-aged adults, in that associated diseases are on the increase. " He

added that the number of deaths of those aged 29 to 40 was increasing, a

strong indicator of rising Aids-related mortality.

 

Aids lobby groups have seized on the figures to attack the

government's failure to come even close to meeting its own targets for the

treatment of HIV sufferers.

 

The Treatment Action Campaign Group (TAC) forced the Health Minister,

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to admit that the government had managed to treat

only between 28,000 and 31,000 Aids patients with anti-retroviral drugs

(ARVs), far short of its target of treating 53,000 people by March.

 

The TAC said if South Africa was to make headway in the battle against

Aids, 200,000 people must be treated with ARVs in the public sector by the

beginning of 2006, and at least 10 per cent of them must be children.

 

President Thabo Mbkei has blamed medical staff shortages and problems

with supplies for the delays, but the TAC said Mr Mbeki lacked the

commitment to implement an effective plan. For years, he questioned the link

between HIV and Aids, claimed many Aids drugs were unsafe and refused to

provide ARVs to prevent mother-to-child transmission. This year, his

predecessor, Nelson Mandela, announced that his only surviving son had died

of Aids

 

Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the opposition party Inkatha Freedom

Party, who lost two children to Aids, said: " It is as if he [Mr Mbeki] lives

in a different South Africa from the millions of people suffering and dying

from HIV/Aids. "

 

The medical profession lost faith in Statistics South Africa in 2002,

when it estimated that only 8.7 per cent of deaths in the country were

caused by HIV/Aids. Doctors said many Aids-related deaths were classified as

being caused by related illnesses.

 

The South African Medical Research Council said many doctors were

reluctant to certify deaths as HIV because families might struggle to claim

on life insurance or funeral policies. South Africa has one of the highest

incidences of Aids in the world. The government has now softened its stance

on treatments, but conservative estimates indicate that about 5.3 million of

South Africa's 45 million people are infected.

24 February 2005 00:40

 

 

 

 

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