AIDS prevention an election ploy?
According to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the recent announcement by Western Cape Minister of Health Nick Koornhof that the mother-to-child prevention of HIV/AIDS programme would be rolled out to five new areas next year may be little more than an election ploy.
TAC staged a placard protest outside the Western Cape Provincial Parliament in Cape Town on Wednesday 13th September 2000 to demand that the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV be rolled out across the entire province. They also protested against what they regard as unnecessary delay to rolling out the programme in the province.
“This shouldn?t be just an election ploy,” said Nathan Geffen of TAC. We will be watching the government closely to see that the programme doesn?t just disappear after the [local government] election and we?ll make sure that it doesn?t.”
“Regrettably, the announcement by the Western Cape government seems to be based on the desire to embarrass the national government rather than to urgently address the needs of the epidemic and to use the wealth and capacity of this province for the benefit of all,” TAC said in its memorandum to Western Cape Premier Gerald Morkel.
Elize Petoors of TAC pointed out that the five sites chosen for the programme in the Western Cape are all in historically black areas.
“This implies that HIV/AIDS is only a black problem. We want it [mother-to-child prevention] for all women in the Western Cape. The coloured women of Mitchell?s Plein, the biggest township in the Western Cape with nearly a million residents, also need the programme,” said Petoors.
TAC is also demanding that the Government and the African National Congress takes an unequivocal position that HIV causes AIDS.
“Otherwise,” said Zackie Achmat of TAC, “I will bring out a placard which reads, “Do mosquitoes cause malaria?”
The demonstration was supported by the Family and Marriage Society of South Africa (FAMSA), the AIDS Legal Network and the New Women?s Movement. Approximately 30 people attended the picket. – Health-e news service.
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AIDS prevention an election ploy?
by Ali Karriem, Health-e News
September 14, 2000