Issued by Ministry of Health
8 September 2006
The Ministry of Health welcomes the intervention by Cabinet to address the challenge of a campaign to deliberately misrepresent the Comprehensive Plan for Management, Care and Treatment of HIV and AIDS and undermine the image of South Africa’s response to HIV and AIDS both locally and abroad.
The Minister of Health re-affirms her commitment to lead the Department of Health’s efforts to rigorously implement all the elements of the Comprehensive Plan as developed by the Department of Health and adopted by Cabinet in November 2003.
The Comprehensive Plan emphasises prevention as the central element of the response to HIV and AIDS. The Plan makes available a number of interventions to maintain optimal health of people living with HIV and AIDS as there is still no cure for HIV and AIDS.
It emphasises the need to prolong progression from HIV infection to development of AIDS defining conditions through adoption of healthy lifestyles. This includes promoting good nutrition and regular physical activity and discouraging health risk behaviour such as smoking, alcohol abuse and unsafe sexual practices.
Treatment is provided to deal with any opportunistic infection.
Because, according to the World Health Organisation, 80% of people in Africa use traditional medicines for various conditions including those associated with HIV and AIDS, the Plan recognises the role of traditional medicine and promotes research and development of these medicines.
The Plan makes antiretroviral drugs available to people whose CD4 count has depreciated to 200 and less.
Under the leadership of the Minister of Health, the Department of Health will intensify its efforts to ensure that everyone progressively realises the right of access to all the elements of the Plan.
Contact: Sibani Mngadi @ 0827720161