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Minister defends slow AIDS-drug take-up
Tamar Kahn
2004-11-04

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang yesterday defended the slow take-up of government's free AIDS drug plan, saying she could not force people to use antiretroviral medicines.

I cannot go out into the streets and pull the people and say now come and take antiretrovirals' that's impossible. 

It really depends on them. And they know where the facilities are  because they were published (by) the districts, she told journalists.T

he latest government figures, released after last week's cabinet   meeting, show 11 200 South Africans are receiving antiretroviral  medicines that slow the progression of HIV. There are, however, wide  variations in the numbers of people receiving treatment in the  different provinces. 

Most are in Western Cape and Gauteng. 

Government unveiled its HIV/AIDS plan last November, and has since been under pressure to meet its own targets. The initial target of getting treatment to 53000 HIV patients by this March was revised earlier this year, and pushed out to the end of next March. 

When asked what she was doing to encourage participation in the  programme, Tshabalala-Msimang said her department had funded a series  of radio advertisements, and said the health districts had published  information about the location of their treatment sites. 

She conceded that there was a wide variation in the provision of AIDS  drugs between the provinces, and said the roll-out plan was hampered by a lack of medical infrastructure, and staff training was needed.  However, she insisted the plan was not going slower than expected.  

When we announced the plan (last November) we said we were going to be in at least one facility per district (within the first year), and out of 53 we have achieved 50.  

On Tuesday Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said the treasury had assumed that patient take-up would be pretty slow, and there were no plans to scale back funding for HIV/AIDS. 

The key challenge is ensuring that the (necessary) medical  infrastructure is distributed across the length and breadth of SA, he said at a press conference. 

A senior treasury official told Business Day earlier this week that the provinces had been hampered because of the delays in finalising  government's complex AIDS drug tender, which, however, is understood to be near finalisation. (Source: Business Day, 28 October 2004).

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