Aids biggest killer in Gauteng

2001-10-03 19:53

Johannesburg - The Gauteng Health department on Wednesday said until HIV/Aids was made a notifiable disease it would not be able to categorically say that the syndrome was responsible for most of the deaths in the province.

This was in response to a media report that HIV/Aids was the biggest killer in the province.

According to the report the provincial director of the Aids programme, Dr Liz Floyd, had admitted that HIV/Aids was killing more people in Gauteng than any other illness.

Health department spokesperson Popo Maja said although there was a notable increase in natural deaths in Gauteng, no statistics were available to support the theory that these were caused by Aids.

"What I can say is that more people die of natural causes," he said. "It is impossible to say that these people die of Aids, we don't have statistics to support it."

Maja said most of the people who died were youths and young adults. He said the Gauteng Health Department was very worried about the increase in deaths and could not downplay the role HIV/Aids played.

Befoe the cause of most of the deaths, HIV/Aids would have to be declared a notifiable disease, Maja said.

According to a report, at least 22% of the blood samples tested at five health districts in the province in the first three months of this year tested positive for the virus.

There was also a marked increase in the incidence of tuberculosis, which is an opportunistic disease common among HIV/Aids sufferers.

Meanwhile the Medical Research Council (MRC) said it would follow due process and present its controversial report, which stated that HIV/Aids was killing the most people in South Africa, to a full Cabinet meeting.

MRC spokesperson Merle May said this could happen on Wednesday, but she was not sure. She could also not confirm that the report would be released once it had been scrutinised by Cabinet.

Business Day reported on Wednesday that the ANC had launched a scathing attack on the MRC's report on Tuesday, saying that it was not "credible".

The DA in the Gauteng Legislature lashed out at the government for its attitude towards the MRC report.

DA spokesperson Jack Bloom said in a statement released in Johannesburg that the acknowledgement by the Free State health authorities and Floyd highlighted the "damage being caused by the unseemly squabble over the report of the Medical Research Council which government is trying to discredit".

"We cannot afford mixed messages as to the seriousness of this epidemic," she said. "The culture of denial at senior levels of government must end so that we can jointly tackle this scourge with all the means at our disposal."

- SAPA