Minister denies she questioned link between HIV and AIDS

Beleaguered health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has labeled as “completely untrue” a newspaper report which claimed she had re-opened the “does HIV cause AIDS” debate” at a recent ANC caucus meeting.

Stopping short of threatening to take legal action, the minister said she had asked members at the meeting to send a positive message to South Africans “that just because you are HIV positive today, does not mean you will get AIDS tomorrow”.

The newspaper report quoted unnamed sources who claimed that Tshabalala-Msimang had denied that HIV caused AIDS.

“I said that we had to tell HIV positive people that by eating properly, managing their stress and using condoms they can live longer (and not enter the AIDS stage for many years).”

She said the fact that an HIV positive person had pneumonia did not mean they would die.

“Health workers are sometimes unsympathetic and may tell the ill person that he or she is going to die, this is not true. We have good protocols in place to manage opportunistic infections,” Tshabalala-Msimang said.

“We have got to tell our people that our futures depend on the decisions we take about our own lives.”

In another development a detailed evaluation of the 18 prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) pilot sites will be released this week, and may clear up much of the confusion around the technical issues  hampering the immediate  roll-out of the programme.

The report, written by the non-governmental organisation Health Systems Trust, and commissioned by the health department, looks in great detail at the sites in the nine provinces.

The report is currently with the department, but is understood not to have been tabled at the recent meeting between the health minister and the nine MECs (MINMEC).

Co-author, Dr David McCoy of the Health Systems Trust, expressed concern that the issues that have  been unfolding in recent weeks were extremely damaging and very demoralising.

“The issues around PMTCT and the challenges around the expansion of the programme are being reported in the media in a distorted and, at times, factually incorrect manner.

“Misunderstandings and half-truths are therefore being added to the politicisation of what should be a public health issue,” McCoy said.
McCoy added that instead of public health professionals and senior managers being able to discuss the experiences and lessons of the programme to date, deliberate on the findings of the evaluation and to then plan a coherent and properly planned way forward, the process had been  hi-jacked by confusion, political controversies and public anger.

Another researcher who asked to remain anonymous said she was concerned that the PMTCT was now being drive by premiers and politicians instead of programme managers at the provincial sites.

Mark Heywood of the Treatment Action Campaign confirmed that he had sent a letter to the executive director of HST and  head of HIV/AIDS in the health department, Dr Nono Simelela, calling for the release of the report.

 “Both have indicated a desire to release it,” Heywood claimed.

 He said he had been informed that the report was a useful and critical analysis of the pilot sites reaching an “honest conclusion that there needed to be a national roll-out and implementation  plan”.

“I believe the report has public value and should be stuck up on the health department website so health workers can benefit from the report. It should not only benefit the privileged few,” Heywood said.

McCoy said the health department had been “absolutely correct and far-sighted enough to commission an evaluation of the programme, and it’s important that the evaluation is used for the purpose it was designed for – to inform policy and future plans in an objective and responsible manner.” ‘€“ Health-e News Service

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