E Cape health dept refutes Aids bungle claim

An HIV/Aids treatment programme was on track in Lusikisiki, contrary to media reports that it had been bungled, the Eastern Cape health department said.

Department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the department had taken over the programme initiated by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the non-governmental organisation Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF) in October 2006.

The Daily Dispatch reported that a year after the handover, the programme was in "ruins". A HIV-positive woman told the paper that when she was diagnosed with the disease she never thought "she would be stranded and left to die".

A Gateway Clinic nurse told the paper that the MSF adherence counsellors made follow-ups on everyone who tested positive. Since government had taken over, the report said communities were suffering as they saw "very little" of adherence councillors.

Kupelo, in a statement, said adherence councillors who worked with MSF had formed an independent community-based organisation and all counsellors were attached to clinics around Lusikisiki.

Since the NGO's handing over of the programme, the department had employed additional staff including four doctors, two nurses, two pharmacy assistants and a data capturer, as a mobile team for the area.

"Rotational clinic visits by doctors is also an order of the day," he said. "Five vehicles are being utilised for clinic visits, mobile team outreach and to trace defaulters. We also wish to state that the HIV and Aids programme is sustained very well in Lusikisiki."

He said his department had instituted an investigation to locate the patient referred to in the Daily Dispatch article but were unsuccessful. - Sapa