Leaps, Bounds and Baby Steps: South Africa’s fight against HIV

In case you didn’t catch the story back in December of ’09 , we shared some good news about president Jacob Zuma and his campaign to encourage awareness and fight HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Since then, there have been some developments we thought you might be interested in.

On April 9 of 2010, South African President Jacob Zuma kicked off “the biggest ever HIV Counseling and Testing campaign” by getting himself tested for HIV in an effort to take the lead and set an example for South Africans from all walks of life to get tested and know their HIV status.

While Zuma assured the people of South Africa that their HIV status is personal and they are in no way compelled to disclose such information, on April 26 he announced that he is in fact HIV negative.

Since the campaign started back in April (of 2010) the country has taken some remarkable steps in the right direction.

By July (of 2010) roughly one million South Africans had voluntarily tested for HIV.

The campaign to get tested was accompanied by a program which assured that “South Africans infected with Tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS would, as of April 2010, receive free antiretroviral (ARV) treatment when their CD4 count was at 350 or less” and “all pregnant HIV-positive women with a CD4 count of 350 or less, or with HIV/AIDS symptoms regardless of their CD4 count, now have access to treatment.”

Subsequently, in August (2010) the South African provincial Health and Social Development Department announced that “More than 90 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mothers in public health facilities in Gauteng (Northern South Africa) between April and June 2010 were saved from the virus”.

After almost 10 years of President Mbeki’s claims that HIV and AIDS are unrelated (an obviously detrimental position) Jacob Zuma has taken baby steps and made leaps and bounds in some areas of the country. There is still a long way to go, but it looks at this point as though the South African Health department is on the right path.