SA and other developing countries face a bleak time ahead with the slashing of USAID-funded programmes.
US President Donald Trump’s inhumane decision has put at risk the antiretroviral treatment of millions of vulnerable people with HIV.
Some estimate that hundreds of thousands of lives could be lost in SA alone, if our government is unable to step up and fill the breach.
For a period of 20 years, this country became heavily dependent on that Pepfar (US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) funding.
In that time, it received almost R150bn, which went towards education, advocacy, research and treatment. That extensive funding allowed government to defer its own financial responsibility to those living with HIV.
Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has conceded that SA’s government cannot now step in and fill the huge Pepfar funding gap but has promised it will at least prioritise the provision of ARVs.
Civil society needs to keep government on track and hold it accountable in this regard, as it did in the early 2000s
Back then, the government — led by former president and Aids denialist Thabo Mbeki and health minister Manto Thshabalala-Msimang — initially declined to provide ARV treatment even for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.
That denialism resulted in the birth of some of the most powerful post-democracy civil society activism.
SA’s flailing health system will not cope with the additional burden that experts are warning the stalling of ARV treatment will cause.
The Treatment Action Campaign, together with outspoken activists such as the Eastern Cape’s Dr Trudy Thomas and Dr Costa Gazi, eventually turned the tide.
Government was forced to not only acknowledge the existence of HIV but was ordered by our courts to begin treating those who had it.
The pressure was on and SA developed the biggest ARV programme in the world, giving millions of South Africans access to the life-saving medication.
The UN is warning that Trump’s decision could lead to the deaths of six-million people worldwide over the next four years, as well as an additional 2,000 new HIV infections every day.
Accompanying that will be all the opportunistic diseases that piggyback on compromised immune systems including deadly forms of TB.
SA’s flailing health system will not cope with the additional burden that experts are warning the stalling of ARV treatment will cause.
The recent budget speech made no direct reference to the additional funds that might be required for ARV treatment apart from an oblique reference to the need to ensure state pharmacies did not run out of medication.
Civil society needs to step up again and force our GNU to act effectively and humanely towards those living with HIV and to fund their treatment.
It pulled SA back from the brink before and it needs to do it again.
Daily Dispatch
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