Deputy President David Mabuza says all Premiers and Mayors will be held accountable for the performance of their local Aids Councils in the fight against the epidemic.
[Speech] Deputy President Mabuza closing off the 9th South African National Aids Conference https://t.co/YP8Vgy70aX #SAAIDS2019 pic.twitter.com/QOkdoJeiQU
— South African Government (@GovernmentZA) June 14, 2019
He was speaking in his capacity as chair of the South Africa National AIDS Council at the closing of the 9th SA AIDS Conference in Durban.
About 7.9 million people are currently living with HIV in South Africa. Mabuza says although 4.4 million people are currently on treatment, the country needs to worker harder to find the remaining 2.2 million so that they too can be put on treatment.
He says he believes that the country can still reach the UN AIDS 90-90-90 target by December next year.
“We acknowledge the advice from our experts that our focus should be on the delivery and implementation of program at the local and district level. That is why our provincial and our district AIDS Council must be strengthened. All our premiers and mayors will be held accountable for the performance of their AIDS Councils in provinces and municipalities where they lead. We are pleased that there are sub districts that are showing good performance and this good performance must be replicated in many areas of our response.”
Chairperson of the South Africa National AIDS Council – Sandile Buthelezi- says South Africa will need to work harder by putting more people on HIV treatment if it wants to achieve the 90-90-90 UN AIDS target of eradicating the virus by 2020.
Buthelezi was addressing more the 3000 delegates on the last day of the SA AIDS Conference.
The target is aimed at getting 90% of the population to know their status. At least 90% of those who tested positive to be on treatment and at least 90% of those on treatment to have their viral load suppressed.
Buthelezi says although the country is making progress more still needs to be done.
“For us to be able to reach the 90-90-90 target by 2020 we need to put at least 6.1 million people by December 2020 on treatment. So you can see the gap and we are not doing well especially when you go down the cascade, but there are some areas that are very worrisome actually when we spoke about health systems strengthen if you look between the peers on HIV, on art and those that are having viral loads, that is a problem. It a health systems issue. Actually we should be having everyone on treatment having their viral load done every six months.”
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