AIDS conference warned to scale up efforts

South Africa's response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic still leaves much to be desired, delegates heard on Wednesday at the 2nd South African AIDS Conference in Durban. Speaking during a plenary session, chairman of the Anglo American Chairman's Fund, Clem Sunter, cautioned that the country faced a "national wipe-out" if it did not scale up its fight against HIV/AIDS. He criticised the lack of cooperation, saying HIV/AIDS efforts generally took place in isolation. Sunter called for a national database, listing regularly updated information about HIV/AIDS, infection levels and vectors of transmission, as there was still a need for further research and statistics. "One antenatal survey per year is not enough," he commented. Meanwhile, the pandemic is having an unsustainable impact on the education sector, a new study has found. In 2004 an estimated 4,000 teachers, or 1.1 percent of the national total, died from AIDS-related causes, with 85 percent of those deaths among people under the age of 45, according to Dr Olive Shisana, executive director of the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health unit at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. Teachers in rural areas were the hardest hit, the HSRC study noted. Shisana stressed the importance of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, pointing out that if the country could offer its people 90 percent treatment coverage, deaths among teachers younger than 45 years could be reduced considerably. With about 42,000 people receiving free antiretroviral medication by the end of March 2005, activists have been frustrated at the slow pace of the rollout. Sunter slated the government for the delays in treatment programme, and warned that if South Africa did not develop a strategy to speed up access to ARVs and improve HIV/AIDS monitoring, the country could reach a "steady state of six million infected people, with [the number of] deaths matching [the number of] new infections". During the opening ceremony, health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told the assembled delegates: "Our objective, as government, is to provide quality healthcare - we are not chasing figures." She admitted that record keeping at public clinics was still a problem. "I think what we need to be saying is, 'Can we do more?' But we need to appreciate what government is doing."