AFRICA/SOUTH AFRICA - Country has 5 million people HIV + and 600,000 have no access to anti-retroviral treatment

Wednesday, 7 July 2004

Pretoria (Fides Service) - In South Africa more than 5 million people are HIV+ and one out of every mother is HIV+ which means that each year 70,000 children are born HIV+. Only 25% of the population can afford to pay anti-HIV treatment covered only by private insurance. The problem is most serious in rural areas where about 20% of women are HIV+ and discrimination and violence are the order of the day.
In 2004 South Africa’s health ministry launched a campaign to provide Anti Retroviral Therapy but logistic complications made it impossible for the government institutions to reach all those in need.
Commitment in the field on the part of the Catholic Church in South Africa is considerable. It has supplied assistance for many years now reaching also patients in remote places and proving also psycho-social assistance. The local Church has a network of 140 programmes of service for HIV+ people in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and orphanages. In February this year the local Church launched a programme
Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy HAART involving 300 patients in 7 of the 22 Catholic health centres. Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy is given to people HIV+ before they develop the symptoms of AIDS. These 22 health institutes are situated all over the country. Each has a doctor and trained nurse and a programme co-ordinator who have followed government Anti-retroviral therapy courses.
The medical team takes a blood sample and sends it for testing in a laboratory in Johannesburg. The results are sent back via computer in 3 days. HAART treatment is given to patients at stage 3 or 4. The doctor sends the prescription to a distributor of pharmaceutics in Johannesburg who sends a month’s treatment for each of the patients. Before starting the treatment the patients are given a three week course on the procedure which is highly complicated.
St Mary's Hospital a Mariannhill started the HAART programme a year ago and is able to treat 99.6% of its 600 patients.
About 100 doctors and nurses are receiving special training in view of using HAART in all 22 church run health centres by February 2005 to treat the following groups of patients: 600 at St Mary's Hospital a Mariannhill, 300 at Tapologo, Rustenburg, 200 at Sizanani, Bronkhorstspruit and 100 in each of the 19 other centres with a total of 3,000 patients. It is hoped that the total number of patients treated will rise to 6,000 in the second year and 12,000 in the third year. (AP) (7/7/2004 Agenzia Fides; Righe:38; Parole:487)


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