President Jacob Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe today met with businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates and discussed critical matters relating to improving health care especially in relation to HIV and AIDS.
President Zuma and Mr Gates discussed the need to scale up the prevention of HIV and AIDS, especially after the announcements made by the President on World AIDS Day.
Amongst the issues discussed was the importance of the prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of the HI virus as well as the need to look at male circumcision as a means of prevention.
President Zuma indicated that the matter was being looked into but that it needed to be communicated carefully to avoid giving an impression that circumcised males were immune to HIV.
Mr Gates briefed the President about pre-exposure Prophylaxis, a new initiative which proposes to test everyone and start all those that are positive on ARVs regardless of CD4 count.
Other matters included:
* strengthening the management of HIV programmes, especially the use of global funds
* introducing management/business approaches to HIV prevention programmes as the Gates Foundation run such programmes in India at present for example.
Deputy President Motlanthe met Mr Gates later to discuss more specifically matters related to the country's HIV and AIDS programme, in his capacity as Chairperson of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC).
Enquiries:
Vincent Magwenya
Cell: 072 715 0024
Issued by: The Presidency
2 December 2009
