Cape Town – Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi on Wednesday shared with MPs his vision of launching the country’s HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) Campaign in Parliament.
“Honourable Speaker, may I humbly ask that you choose a date where we will come and publicly launch this campaign here in Parliament with you and the Chairperson of the NCOP [National Council of Provinces] taking the lead, followed by leaders of all political parties,” said Motsaoledi while delivering his 2013/14 Budget Vote speech in the National Assembly.
The Health Minister said he would also make available a GeneXpert unit to make it possible for MPs to also be screened for TB.
Motsoaledi said the testing campaign should also be taken to the provincial legislatures, district and local councils, and thereafter it should be taken to churches, schools and all other centres of civil life.
He also informed Parliament that the Department of Health’s next big target was cervical cancer, one of the biggest killers of women caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV).
The vaccine for HPV was expensive, but as part of its School Health Programme, South Africa would begin to administer it to all nine and 10-year-old girls in Quintile 1, 2, 3 and 4 schools from February 2014.
Improving healthcare
In its Service Delivery Agreement with President Jacob Zuma, the Health Department committed itself to reaching four objectives: to increase life expectancy; cut maternal and child mortality; reduce the burden of disease from HIV and Aids and tuberculosis, as well as improve the effectiveness of the health system.
“After going into deep analysis of the problems, it became clear that unless we deal decisively with HIV and Aids and TB, it would be foolhardy to believe that we could ever decrease the high levels of mortality and morbidity in our country,” Motsoaledi said.
Of his department’s achievements, he said health facilities providing antiretroviral (ARV) treatment had increased from 490 in February 1990 to 3 540 in February 2010, while the number of nurses trained to administer ARV treatment in the absence of doctors had been hiked from 250 in 2010 to 23 000.
This was part of a programme called Nurse Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Therapy, which has led to 1.9 million people being on treatment.
A state-of-the-art treatment, called the fixed dose combination (FDC), has drastically sliced the cost of ARV treatment. Previously, it cost the State R313.99 per patient per month. Now the costs were R89.37, meaning more people can be treated.
“By the end of last year, researchers, local and international, started reporting a dramatic increase in life expectancy in our country. They also reported a decline in under-five mortality and maternal mortality ration,” said Motsoaledi.
However, the neonatal mortality rate remained South Africa’s biggest challenge, the minister said.
On TB, he said South Africa started using GeneXpert technology, which radically reduced the time needed to diagnose TB. Some 1.3 million tests for TB, which represented 50 percent of tests done globally, have been done since the new technology came into use.
South Africa’s TB cure rate stood at 67.5 percent in 2008. Last year, it reached 75.9 percent.
“The target set by the World Health Organisation is 85 percent cure rate. We are steadily but slowly moving in that direction,” Motsoaledi noted.
But having turned the corner did not mean South Africans could now become complacent. “We still have a very long road to travel with HIV/AIDS and TB,” he said.
The National Health Insurance (NHI) system, the flagship programme designed to change the efficiency and effectiveness of South Africa’s health care system, would give every citizen the right of access to good quality, affordable health care.
The NHI, which was being introduced under different names across the world, would also ensure that the socio-economic condition of individuals would not determine access.
Motsoaledi welcomed the intention of the Competition Commission to start a public inquiry into the cost of private healthcare.
Four years ago, the Department of Health had introduced two new vaccines, Prevenor and Rotarix, against pneumonia and diarrhoea, which kills at least 25 children daily.
The vaccines were highly successful, Motsoaledi said. – SAnews.gov.za
