PREMIER'S ADDRESS
ALLOW me, first and foremost, to extend my appreciation for having invited me to this auspicious occasion. It is my sincerest conviction that we meet here today as South Africans bound by our genuine respect and love for our country.Programme Director,
MEC for Health Sibongile Manana
Members of the Executive Council present here today
DG Advocate Stanley Soko
Dr Karim and other heads of department
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
Bound by a love, a passion and patriotism so strong that we can take on anyone and anything that's bent on ravaging and tearing apart our country – including the HIV/Aids scourge.
Since the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic 15 years ago, the virus has infected more than 47 million people in the world. With more than 2.2 million deaths in 1998, HIV/AIDS has now become the fourth leading cause of mortality and its impact is going to increase.
Over 95% of all cases and 95% of AIDS deaths occur in the developing world, mostly among young adults and increasingly in women.
Since 1980, HIV has infected more than 47 million people in the world. It has already cost the lives of nearly 14 million people. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region in which four-fifths of all AIDS deaths occurred in 1998.
South Africa has the fastest growing epidemic in the world. An estimated three and a half million were infected by the end of 1998. One in eight adults is infected with HIV.
There are an estimated 1600 new infections daily. Within three years, almost a quarter of a million South Africans will die of AIDS each year and this figure will have risen to more than half a million by 2008.
That is why we require intensified care and support for those infected and affected. We shall work together to care for those living with HIV/AIDS and for the orphans. They must not be subjected to discrimination of any kind. They can live productive lives for many years.
They are human beings like you and me. When we lend a hand, we build our own humanity, and when we remind ourselves that, like them, each one of us can become infected. But something very said is that many of those who are HIV-positive do not know their status.
Ladies and gentlemen, I urge you to go for voluntary HIV testing to enable infected people to start early treatment to slow down the progression of the sickness.
Believe me when I say that one of our greatest challenges is how we deal with the HIV/Aids scourge. In partnership with all sectors of society , we must continue to give absolute priority to HIV/AIDS programmes. We must continue to mobilize popular awareness of the seriousness of the epidemic.
All of us must realise that the epidemic is not only a health issue, but also an economic one, which we ignore at our peril. This requires a very concrete programme and campaign by a concrete and dedicated partnership. We need to fight against HIV/AIDS with the same intensity as we struggle d against the criminal apartheid regime.
I believe that the partnership anniversary we are celebrating today is part of the total onslaught we have launched and continue to wage against HIV/AIDS. You will recall that the partnership campaign was launched two years ago on this day by the then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki.
The President called on all South Africans to "join hands … in partnership against AIDS … to save our nation."
This year marks the second anniversary of this historic declaration against AIDS. Despite significant progress made in the last two years, we must, once again, pledge to do more to help combat the scourge of AIDS.
As we mark the second anniversary, we must rededicate ourselves to the goals of the partnership campaign.
Our partnership approach proceeds from the premise that our integrated programmes on HIV\AIDS can only succeed if they are based on the collective knowledge, commitment, skills and action of our people across all sectors.
Today, we join hands in this Partnership Against HIV/AIDS, united in our resolve to save the nation.
As Partners Against AIDS, together we pledge to spread the message! We must all join hands as people of South Africa in fighting this silent killer that threatens our lives and the very fabric of our existence.
We must use this opportunity to make our family, our friends, our neighbours and our fellow South Africans conscious of the dangers that HIV/AIDS poses to every single person in our country and to the health and future of our entire nation.
We must urge all our youth to protect themselves at an early age and their loved ones against this disease by abstaining from sexual activity as much as possible by being faithful to their partners or by always using a condom if they are sexually active.
To the men of our country. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE .
We ask you to use a condom if you engage in a sexual relationship which has the potential of exposing you, your partner or your wife to the danger of HIV/AIDS, for using a condom is a sign of respect to your partner, not a sign of mistrust.
MEN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Together let us urge everyone in our nation to take responsibility for their own lives into their own hands in order to ensure that this killer disease is eradicated from our society.
Every day we are burying more young people than ever before who have died because of AIDS. Every day a child suffers and has to learn to fend for him or herself when a parent dies as a result of this disease. Every day, when someone, who is infected, dies, we lose a lifetime of skills and experiences; we suffer a blow to our economy that we have only just begun to rebuild.
I believe, therefore, that it is important for all of us to educate each other about the danger that HIV/AIDS poses to the socio-economic situation in our country. HIV/AIDS threatens to undermine our efforts to grow our economy and build a better life for all our people.
It kills those on whom our society relies to provide income through agriculture, through mining, in the factories, those who run our schools and our hospitals, and those who govern our towns and provinces. It worsens the poverty pervasive in our society when parents who are breadwinners die.
Everyday every night - wherever we are - we shall let our families, friends and peers know that they can save themselves and save the nation, by changing the way we live and how we love. We shall use every opportunity openly to discuss the issue of AIDS.
As Partners Against AIDS, together we pledge to care!
MEN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
I am glad to announce that two weeks ago the NEC of the African National Congress reaffirmed its policy and programme on HIV/AIDS carried out through the structures of the movement and those of government.
Let me once again stress that our policy and programmes are based on the thesis that HIV does cause AIDS. Our awareness and prevention programmes are based on the ABC message:
A bstain. B e faithful. Wear a C ondom.
In taking forward this programme, national government has spent or allocated over R500 million largely for public awareness campaigns.
This is over and above allocations by provincial governments, as well as expenditure on clinical work - managing opportunistic infections - and research. We have distributed more than 200 possible social partnerships to fight the pandemic. Both as the ANC and government, we talk about HIV/AIDS on whatever platform and conversation we find ourselves.
Our programme to combat the pandemic also takes place in the context of our fight against poverty, to make basic health services, clean water and sanitation accessible to all our people; to improve nutrition and food security; to fight against diseases such as TB, malaria, STDs and to promote the empowerment of women and young people.
Our programme also includes fighting against discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, creating a supportive and caring social environment for AIDS orphans and other affected individuals, programmes to pursue further investigations into reduction of mother-to-child, and research into a vaccine.
Fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic is a national priority.
As a movement and government that embodies the aspirations and hopes of our people, we must not allow ourselves to be detracted from pursuing the programme to turn around the tide of the pandemic with vigor, commitment and dedication.
Neither should we pander to the agenda of those whose occupation it is to extract the most sensational sound bite. In the final analysis, our responsibility is to the masses of our people.
As Partners Against AIDS, together we pledge to pool our resources and to commit our brainpower!
There is still no cure for HIV and AIDS. Nothing can prevent infection except our own behaviour. But we are all delighted at the news that Alphavax HIV inoculation will be tested on people in the United States and South Africa for the first time next year. And that if it proves effective, it will be offered to South Africans for up to 60 times cheaper than to other Westerners.
In the meantime we shall continue to work together to support medical institutions to search for a vaccine and a cure. And we shall mobilise all possible resources to spread the message of prevention, to offer support to those infected and affected, to destigmatise HIV and AIDS and to continue our search for a medical solution.
And so today we join hands in the Partnership, fully aware that our unity is our strength. The simple but practical action that we take today is tomorrow's insurance for our nation.
Accordingly, we pledge that wherever we meet and study, work and sing, play and enjoy one another's company, we will protect ourselves and our partners against HIV and AIDS.
When the history of our time is written, let it record the collective efforts of our societies responding to a threat that put the future of entire nations in the balance. Let future generations judge us on the adequacy of our response.
To overcome the challenge that this disease poses, every one of us must play an active part. If you are a member of a church or non-governmental organisation or a school that does not as yet have an HIV/AIDS programme, see to it that you come together to draw up such a programme.
We must continue to break the silence and talk about this disease with openness. Those among us, who are infected, must be encouraged to tell others about their experiences. This will help to discourage the discrimination which they have at institutions and places of work.
Rejection of those who are suffering is not acceptable; and we as a nation must offer all the support we can to people living with HIV/AIDS.
Let me repeat, we must strengthen the Partnership Against AIDS so that it unites every community in our country into a dynamic force for changing people's mindsets and behaviours.
The Mpumalanga government welcomes the initiatives that are being taken by the business community and the entire private sector, women's groups, youth and student groups, the religious community, sporting organisations and the many non-governmental organisations to strengthen this partnership.
As we join hands today, let us create a truly caring and humane partnership for health and prosperity for this will strengthen our efforts in shaping the next century as our African century.
Ladies and gentlemen, in addressing the scourge, my office, the Provincial and the National Youth Commission has deemed it necessary to put into effect mechanism of reducing to a minimum effects of HIV/AIDS.
This mechanism seeks to involve young people living with AIDS in an extensive peer communication programme with special forms on youth. The project will offer information on the disease, prevention, and avoidance, counseling and positive images of young people living and coping with HIV/AIDS.
MEN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
HIV/AIDS is among us.
It is real. It is spreading
We can only win against HIV/AIDS if we join hands to save our nation. For too long we have closed our eyes as a nation, hoping the truth was not so real.
THE DANGER IS REAL
Because it is carried and communicated by other human beings, it is with us in our work places, in our classrooms and our lecture halls. It is there in our church gatherings and other religious functions. HIV/AIDS walks with us. It travels with us wherever we go. It is there when we play sport. It is there when we sing and dance.
Many of us have grieved for orphans left with no one to fend for them. We have experienced AIDS in the groans of wasting lives. We have carried it in small and big coffins to many graveyards.
At times we did not know that we were burying AIDS victims. At other time we knew, but chose to remain silent. And when the time comes for each one of us to make a personal precautionary decision, we fall prey to doubt and false confidence. We hope that HIV/AIDS is someone else's problem.
HIV/AIDS is not someone else's problem. It is my problem. It is your problem. By allowing it to spread, we face the danger that half of our youth will not reach adulthood. Their education will be wasted.
The economy will shrink. There will be a large number of sick people whom the healthy will not be able to maintain. Our dreams as a people will be shattered. HIV spreads mainly through sex.
You have the right to live your life the way you want to. But I appeal to the young people, who represent our country's future, to abstain from sex for as long as possible. If you decide to engage in sex, use a condom.
In the same way, I appeal to both men and women to be faithful to each other, but otherwise to use condoms. The power to defeat the spread of HIV\AIDS lies in our partnerships.
As partners against AIDS, we can spread the message of prevention, acceptance of people living with HIV\AIDS, care and support for those infected and affected and pool all our resources.
Let me remind you that YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE .
We can reduce HIV transmission through abstaining from intercourse, by being faithful to our spouses or partners and by always using a condom. AIDS has no cure, but can be prevented! There is no vaccine for HIV. For now, the best defence against HIV\AIDS remains prevention.
The provincial government is confident that all units and sectors of the South African nation will join us in spreading information and knowledge about HIV and AIDS, supporting and caring for the infected and affected.
Ultimately, we must address those social, economic and environmental factors that make the majority of our people poor, ignorant, powerless and prone to many diseases that place limitations on their freedom and quality of life.
I thank you!