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) - September 14, 2003
Claire Keeton
The preparations for treatment have sparked an upsurge in HIV testing among villagers. Doctors Without Borders - which set up a successful pilot treatment project in Khayelitsha in Cape Town - had been working in Lusikisiki with 11 clinics and local organisations since January to pave the way for treatment.
Lusikisiki was the first rural area to be targeted for a treatment project that would operate through primary healthcare clinics. "Lusikisiki is prepared to be one of the treatment sites if government decides that we can give antiretrovirals," the project manager, Dr Herman Reuter, said this week.
A national treatment roll-out plan will be handed to the Cabinet in two weeks for a decision on how to scale up antiretroviral treatment nationally.
A tenth of Lusikisiki's 300 000 people were estimated to be HIV-positive and about 10% of those were likely to need treatment. One of them is 26-year-old Nocawe Jijamba, a Treatment Action Campaign volunteer, who is involved in community education.
She said: "When I disclosed I was HIV-positive, people didn't believe me and said I was being paid to lie. I told them I had reason to test and disclose as government has promised antiretrovirals."
TAC volunteers, clinic committee members and nurses have been energetically mobilising communities for the past few months.
Sobantwana Mzobanzi, a school principal and member of the Goso Forest clinic committee, said: "People are dying here day by day. We tell them treatment does not cure Aids and it is for life, but they are praying the government will speed up treatment."
Clinic counsellor Nolubabalo Madondile said there has been a marked increase in HIV testing ( about 500 people were tested a month) now that treatment was on offer. She said: "Before, people wouldn't test. They would say there was nothing for them if they were positive."
Clinic nurses said they encouraged testing, particularly among patients showing signs of HIV - such as sharp weight loss, skin infections or tuberculosis. In July, 12 out of 42 people tested at their clinic were HIV-positive.
Efforts to educate pupils about HIV and condom use were also having an effect.
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