ARV's available for prisoners
2005-07-22 09:16
Durban - Anti-Aids drugs will be more accessible to prisoners in KwaZulu-Natal after threats of a hunger strike and a letter of demand was sent to prison authorities earlier this week.
"The prison's HIV/Aids co-ordinator is negotiating with the department of health so we can get two accredited antiretroviral (ARV) sites," said department of correctional services spokesperson Nonala Ndlovu.
She could not say where the sites would be located.
Ndlovu said prisoners currently received ARVs through the department of health. Ndlovu said this meant if doctors recommended that inmates be given ARV's, they were transported to one of the sites where ARV's were administered.
"Prisoners definitely not getting ARV's"
However, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in Durban said prisoners were "definitely not getting ARV's" and only had access to medication for opportunistic infections like tuberculosis and influenza.
TAC spokesperson Thembiso Mkhize said: "If the health department can't reach their ARV targets on the outside how can they manage to roll it out in the prisons?"
Mkhize said the TAC was "pushing" the ARV rollout, and so far only 63 000 people were on ARV's nationally. The organisation had given the department a target of 200 000 by February 2006.
He said prisoners also had to wait up to three weeks to see a doctor.
The memorandum of demands of prisoners in the Medium B section of Westville Prison also called for the release of prisoners with a CD4 count of less than 200, permission to receive fruit from visitors and take it to their cells, and continuing Aids counselling.
Difficult to determine who gets medication
Mkhize said a CD4 count was not enough to determine whether people qualified for ARV's because their general state of health and the presence of opportunistic infections also played a role.
Prisoner representatives, the SA Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights (Sapohr) and the TAC would meet on Monday to discuss the issues.
On Wednesday Sapohr threatened legal action against the ministers of correctional services and health for failing to provide aids drugs to prisoners. Sapohr's spokesperson in KwaZulu-Natal, Derek Mdluli, said the prisoners would hand a memorandum of demands to his organisation on Monday, and Sapohr would then serve notices on the ministers "asking them why the prisoners are not getting drugs."
"If we do not get a response or the response we want, we will make an urgent application to the high court to compel them to give ARV's to prisoners," said Mdluli.
- The CD4 lymphocyte count is an indicator of how healthy the immune system is. The CD4 cell count is indicated in cells per cubic millimetre, and is measured by taking a blood sample. The normal number of CD4 cells varies from individual to individual, it is usually between 800 and 1500.
- SAPA