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) - Sunday September 28, 2003
Claire Keeton
Dr Anthony Mbewu, the chairman of a task team appointed to draw up the detailed plan - assisted by international experts - said the plan would be ready by Tuesday's deadline.
Most provincial working groups were unwilling to disclose details ahead of its submission.
But the Western Cape revealed that it was ready to start treatment at 15 sites which would more than double the number of patients on treatment over the next six months - from about 1 000 to 2 500.
Western Cape HIV/Aids programme head Dr Fareed Abdullah said: "We have had programmes running for more than two years and have the advantage of knowing the drugs and how to select patients."
Gauteng Health Department official Dr Nomonde Xundu said the province was assessing 22 sites for treatment, some of which seemed to be ready, while the North West province had identified four hospitals as initial treatment sites.
About 20 civil society groups have called on the task team to allow the provinces to decide on where to start and expand their Aids treatment programmes.
In a submission to the task team, it proposed a target of 208 000 South Africans on treatment by March 2005 and an "urgent-access treatment campaign" for those in desperate need.
Treatment Action Campaign treasurer Mark Heywood said on Friday: "The treatment programme requires the broad participation of civil society and social mobilisation."
Dr Wilbert Bannenberg, of the Generic Antiretroviral Procurement Project, agreed that there would be problems with drug adherence and stigma unless there were treatment literacy campaigns driven by people with HIV/Aids.
The submission called for the adoption of several rollout strategy models, with the focus on primary healthcare facilities.
The government had a constitutional obligation "to provide treatment where they have the capacity to do so " said lawyers Geoff Budlender, of the Legal Resources Centre, and Jonathan Berger and Fatima Hassan of the Aids Law Project.
Sites should be able to identify themselves as ready to deliver treatment, they maintained in the civil society submission.
The Constitution requires the government to co-operate with non-governmental agencies and take measures to reduce the price of antiretrovirals for use in the public sector and purchase in the private sector, they said.
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