Sunday Times, South Africa - Sunday, March 7, 1999
According to the results of an antenatal survey sponsored by the United Nations Children's Education Fund, almost half the young women tested at the Cato Manor clinic are HIV-positive.
Durban South Central mayor Terresa Mthembu said urgent action needed to be taken to halt the increase of infection.
"The rate at which AIDS is spreading is bad news for our city - we are burying young people every weekend. We can talk until we're blue in the face - if young people do not change their behaviour, there is little we adults can do," she said.
Dr Jennifer Reddy, the South Central council's clinical medical officer, said Cato Manor may be just the tip of an iceberg.
Cato Manor, KwaMashu and Kwandengezi townships have the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in the Durban metropolitan area. The survey results have prompted local community leaders and the Health Department to engage in an aggressive AIDS-awareness campaign largely targeted at young people between the ages of 12 and 30.
Nurses at the clinic said they had brought in volunteers from the National Association of People Living with AIDS as it had become impossible to cope with the number of women who needed counselling.
The Deputy Director-General of the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department, Professor Ronald Green-Thompson, told Parliament this week a survey had found that 37 percent of women in the area had contracted HIV.
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