The Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille, today Wednesday, 26 May 2010, launched the provincial HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) campaign at the Michael Mapongwana Community Health Centre in Khayelitsha.
The launch marks the provincial rollout of the largest HIV Counselling and Testing campaign yet in South Africa. This campaign will run from today 26 May 2010 until June 2011, the end of the current national strategic plan on HIV, AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) (2007 to 2011).
All healthcare workers will be trained and encouraged to offer HIV testing to all their clientele. In the Western Cape, the District Health Services (DHS) program of the Department of Health will take the lead in this process.
This means that while HIV testing is available at all health facilities in the province, including large hospitals, it is envisaged that most HIV testing will happen in primary healthcare facilities, community health centres and at non-medical sites and events in the broader community, these components together constitute what is known as the district health services of the Western Cape province and last year these services saw head counts of over 17 million people.
The event was attended by provincial ministers, the provincial Parliament Standing Committee on Health, the Khayelitsha Health Forum, trade union representatives, various health officials from the provincial government and City of Cape Town.
The national campaign was launched on World AIDS Day last year for 2010. The core message of the campaign is "South Africa is taking responsibility".
With this campaign the Department of Health aims to reduce new infections by fifty percent (50 percent) by 2011 and strengthen the linkage between HIV care and treatment.
With this campaign, the Department of Health aims to encourage 15 million South Africans to voluntarily test for HIV and learn their status. The objectives are:
* to mobilise people to know their status, motivate them to stay negative if they test negative, take positive steps if they test positive
* to get a more accurate measure of the size of the problem of new infections
* to increase health seeking behaviour and
* to increase access to treatment, care and support services.
The campaign has been designed to roll out progressively, starting in nine focus districts, one per province and moving in succession to nine new districts every two months. In the Western Cape the metro has been identified as the focus district for the launch.
According to the national antenatal HIV prevalence survey 2008 as well as the routine HCT data, Khayelitsha district has the highest HIV positive rate at 33.4 percent. However, the Western Cape boasts an HIV antenatal prevalence of approximately 16 percent, one of the lowest in the country. This is all the more reason to push for a massive testing campaign because it remains possible to achieve complete coverage of antiretroviral treatment for all those in need of care.
With nearly six million people infected with HIV, South Africa has the highest recorded number of people living with this disease in the world. Actuarial projections estimate that 280 000 to 300 000 people in the Western Cape are HIV positive.
During the campaign, the Western Cape aims to test about 635 000 people in the metro and 275 000 in the five rural districts. This will continue until all of South Africa's 52 health districts have been covered. The focus for the next two months will be targeted at social mobilisation through community based activities.
South Africa also has one of the world's worst tuberculosis (TB) epidemics. Statistics reveal that naught 0.1 percent of the population get infected with the TB disease every year. In order to have any success in curbing the spread of HIV and saving lives of those infected, South Africans have to succeed in controlling both HIV and TB epidemics.
Contact:
Hélène Rossouw
Tel: 021 483 4426
Cell: 082 771 8834
Fax: 021 483 4143
E-mail: herossou@pgwc.gov.za
Sithembiso Magubane
Tel: 021 483 9981
Issued by: Department of Health, Western Cape Provincial Government
26 May 2010
Source: Western Cape Provincial Government (http://www.capegateway.gov.za/)
