89% Aids rate fallacy - Lekota
2004-08-18 21:02
Special Report
A gel made by US drug firm Endo Pharmaceuticals that is designed to prevent infection with the Aids virus has proved ineffective in trials in Africa.
Cape Town - Reports that 89% of soldiers at a South African National Defence Force (SANDF) project had tested positive for HIV/Aids was "an utter fallacy", according to Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota.
He was replying to a question in parliament from Democratic Alliance MP Mohammed Sayedali-Shah.
Lekota was asked why he consistently had maintained the rate of infection was 20%.
The minister said: "It (the 89% figure) is not a reflection of the infection rate in the SANDF because the members (in the project) were not a representative sample."
He said that last December, the SANDF had launched a project which saw two clinics opening at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria and another at Mtubatuba in KwaZulu-Natal.
Reports in July said that at the KwaZulu Natal clinic, 89% of soldiers - 947 out of 1 089 - who volunteered for testing were found to be HIV-positive.
Lekota said the figures involved - which he did not divulge on Wednesday - had been completely misinterpreted.
The figures remained "between 17% and, at the last count, about 22% or 23%.
"That is what it remains. That is the infection rate (reflected) across the country."
He noted that family members had gone for voluntary testing as well.
He said two more clinics were being set up - one in Umtata, Eastern Cape, and one in Bloemfontein, Free State.
Asked by Sayedali-Shah what his immediate plan was to fight the pandemic, he said that people who caught Aids while in service were able to join a programme that included home-based care.
- I-Net Bridge (News24)