Sunday Times, South Africa - Sunday, March 7, 1999
S'Thembiso Msomi
According to the shocking results of an ante-natal survey sponsored by the United Nations Children's Education Fund (Unicef) almost half the young women tested at the Cato Manor clinic are infected with HIV. Durban South Central mayor Theresa Mthembu said urgent action was needed to arrest the disease.
"The rate in which AIDS is spreading is bad news for our city," she said.
"We bury young people every weekend. We can talk until our faces are blue but if young people do not change their behaviour there is little we can do."
Nurses at the clinic say they have brought in volunteers from the National Association of People Living With Aids to help them cope with the number of women who needed counselling.
KwaZulu-Natal Health Department deputy director-general Professor Ronald Green-Thompson told Parliament this week the disease was rocketing in the suburb. He said the survey found that 37 percent of women in the area had contracted the killer disease.
"These figures reflect the seriousness of HIV/AIDS in the province. We have to adopt new strategies to deal with the problem," he said.
KwaZulu-Natal has the highest number of AIDS cases in the country with statistics putting the number of affected pregnant women at about 37 percent.
Dr Jennifer Reddy, the South Central Council's clinical medical officer, said Cato Manor could be just the tip of an iceberg. "The statistics could be higher in other informal settlements where research has not been done."
The survey results had prompted community leaders and the health department to engage in an aggressive AIDS awareness campaign. "Last Sunday we hosted a rally attended by 400 young people. People seem to be serious about addressing the problem. We now have volunteers visiting schools to teach people about the disease," said Reddy.
She said the campaigns were targeted at young people between 12 and 30.
A spokesperson for Young Positive Living Ambassodors, Promise Mthembu, said the Cato Manor survey showed campaigns against AIDS had failed.
"For nine years the government has been talking about awareness campaigns, but things are getting worse. We need to change the approach."
Mthembu said that while women were the most affected by HIV/AIDS, few campaigns were aimed at them.
"The condomise campaigns, for example, are largely aimed at men, as female condoms are not yet freely available. In poor communities it is difficult for a woman to convince her partner to use a condom if he does not want to.
"We should rather concentrate on giving women skills to negotiate what they want. That could lead to a major reduction of such cases," Mthembu said.
Green-Thompson told Parliament 40 percent of patients at Durban's biggest hospital, King Edward, were infected. Cato Manor, KwaMashu and Kwandengezi townships had the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in the city.
Dr Denis York, of the University of Natal's virology department, said socio-economic problems were largely to blame for the spread of the disease in these areas.
"Because of poverty, you have more cases of prostitution, and people are more likely to have more sexual partners just to keep away from hunger."
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