21:40 09.11.2008 | All news from "AIDS/HIV"
South Africa: Mbete Appeals to Business to Help in the Fight Against HIV, Aids
"We urge this sector to work with us to unlock donor funding which will help us deliver better healthcare services to the improvised communities of our country," Ms Mbete said, speaking at the 2nd South African Business against HIV and AIDS (SABCOHA) Conference.
The conference was held under the theme: "What do we need to do differently?".
The Deputy President also appealed to the business sector to help government with additional capacity to respond to the issue of HIV and AIDS by providing private health care, especially hospital groups with the sharing of expertise and capacity.
Ms Mbete, who is also Chairperson of the South African National Aids Council (SANAC), said that while the sector had done much to help the fight against the spread of AIDS, more initiatives were necessary to bring the incidences of HIV and AIDS down in the country. "We have to come together to reiterate our common understanding that HIV and AIDS is an enemy of the entire society and as such can only be defeated if we all join hands," Ms Mbete told the conference.
She said government and the private sector needed to move swiftly to ensure that the National Strategic Plan, which aims to reduce the number of new HIV and AIDS infections by half by 2011, is implemented.
Government, business, civil society, lobby groups, scientists, health workers and traditional leaders all have to work together to reach the goals set out by the National Strategic Plan. "Business must come in, in particular in the mobilisation of resources. That mobilisation of resources and giving of energy to activities must be more focused in the provinces so that we don't all just look at a national level structure and activities but we go to provinces where, in fact, the chances are bigger of making a difference," she said.
Another goal, Ms Mbete continued, was to ensure that eight out of the ten who need it receive Antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. The government is focused on increasing access to treatment, care and support for 80 percent of people living with HIV and AIDS and their families by 2011. Ms Mbete hoped for a closer partnership between the Health Department and the private sector, "with the private sector becoming an effective delivery vehicle for government treatment programmes".
On government part, she continued that "we will ensure that we also mobilise all our citizens, especially the youth, the call that emphasises prevention, treatment-care-and support, monitoring, human rights and access to justice." The Deputy President said she envisioned "the private sector assisting with resources where the Health Department was constrained".
She said government would not change policies that are already in place but said the concentration would be put on how they would implement those policies. The conference continues today with business leaders debating further measures to prevent and treat the pandemic.
They say they realise the need to join forces against HIV and AIDS since statistics given at the conference show that 67 percent of people living with the disease are in Africa, and this reduces the Gross Domestic Product by up to 1.5 percent.http://allafrica.com/