Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - August 10, 2003
Suthentira Govender
Professor Jerry Coovadia, a leading Aids expert who heads the HIV/Aids research unit at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, said King Edward VIII Hospital had an HIV infection rate of between 40% and 60% for child patients.
However, the Sunday Times was unable to visit the hospital to observe conditions there. KwaZulu-Natal's Director-General of Health, Professor Ronald Green-Thompson, refused to grant permission, saying he did not want to stigmatise it as an Aids hospital.
He said a similar grim picture was seen at hospitals throughout the province, where 60% of patients were HIV-positive.
"The epidemic has put pressure on our services because of recurring opportunistic infections," he said.
"The health department's budget is also stretched because end-stage patients are brought to our hospitals and clinics."
Another leading Aids researcher, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, said one in four patients left King Edward "in a hearse".
He said: "The biggest impact of the disease has been on King Edward's medical and paediatric wards. The female wards are the fullest, and there are a number of young people coming in for treatment of serious illnesses.
"We hardly ever saw young people in the medical wards up to the mid-1990s." Karim said about 50% of the patients at King Edward's medical wards had tuberculosis, which is often Aids-related.
"These patients have very unusual strains of the disease, including TB of the bones, kidneys and uterus. Pneumonia is another common disease," he said. "The HIV/Aids situation has thrown the hospital into despair. The doctors and nurses have to deal with losing patients almost every day."
Coovadia said Aids at King Edward had also affected the training of medical students. The uniformity of patients' problems had stifled the ability of students to analyse diseases critically.
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