SOUTH Africa had achieved much in health since the era of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as health minister, but South Africans were still getting a raw deal, Salim Abdool-Karim, a director of the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in SA, told an SA Medical Association conference in Durban on Friday. “We have poor health outcomes despite good policies.” He said since Tshabalala-Msimang stepped down in 2008, the government’s antiretroviral (ARV) roll-out had had a major impact on South Africa’s mortality rate. The rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission had fallen almost 10-fold, from 27 percent to 2.7 percent of newborn babies being infected. –
Sapa