Pretoria – KwaZulu-Natal has made major inroads in the fight against HIV by providing azidothymidine treatment (AZT) to all pregnant women who attended provincial antenatal clinics, dramatically reducing the transmission rate from mother to child.
“In 2008, it [transmission rate] stood at 21 percent and now, by improving the quality of service at our facilities and offering Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission to women at the correct time, it has been brought down to below three percent,” said KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo.
He was presenting the department’s first quarter service delivery report to the provincial legislature on Thursday. Dhlomo acknowledged that annually, 20 000 children in the province were infected with HIV from their mothers, with early booking for treatment being a challenge in many areas.
“A number of interventions have been put in place to ensure that we eventually eradicate the transmission of mother to child of HIV,” said Dhlomo.
More people in the province checked their status, with 2.3 million having tested for HIV since the launch of the HIV, Counselling and Testing campaign in April 2010.
Dhlomo said the province had reached an overall average of 78 percent of people having tested. There were districts lagging behind, which had not reached the 70 percent mark, including eThekwini (58 percent), iLembe (68 percent) and uMgungundlovu (66 percent).
“These are districts where the prevalence rate is above 40 percent … we will intensify our campaign towards the three million milestone at the end of June and our efforts will be in these three districts,” said Dhlomo.
Nationally, more than 12 million, out of the target of 15 million, have tested since the launch of the campaign.
Dhlomo also announced that as the June school holidays draw nearer, the province will have camps throughout the province to continue with the programme of circumcision, which is one of the prevention methods advocated by government.
More than 140 120 men and boys have been circumcised throughout South Africa, and 35 688 of them were from KZN. – BuaNews
