'Making Aids notifiable won't work'

Published Oct 13, 1999

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It would cost less to give pregnant women with HIV the anti-Aids drug nevirapine than to make Aids a notifiable disease, Parliament heard on Tuesday.

Speakers from the Aids Legal Network, the National Aids Coalition of SA, the Treatment Action Campaign and the Women's Legal Centre appeared before the Parliamentary Health Portfolio Committee to discuss proposals that would legally require health workers to tell family members and the state when they diagnose someone with Aids.

The speakers were unanimous: "We agree with the government's reasons for wanting to make Aids a notifiable disease, we just don't believe it will work."

When the proposals were published in April, former health minister Nkosazana Zuma said they were intended to stop the secrecy around Aids and to collect information on the progression of the epidemic.

"We support these principles," said Mark Heywood of the Aids Legal Network. "We just don't believe notification is the way to achieve them."

He said parliamentarians should get their own house in order before forcing transparency on others.

"You are at particular risk of HIV because you travel often and you are away from your partners. We also know that at least some of you frequent escort agencies," said Heywood. "Yet how many of you have been for an Aids test and publicly disclosed your status?"

Other arguments against notification include:

- People who fear they are HIV-positive will not go for treatment or tests because they are worried their families will be told of their status.

- Patients may give false names and addresses.

- It is impractical: TB is notifiable but it doesn't work - health workers are too busy to spend time looking for patients' homes.

- Notifying Aids diagnoses will give information on the state of the epidemic eight to 10 years ago - too late for proper planning.

- Notification is costly, because of the extra staff needed to visit families and fill in the extra forms.

Nacosa's Ashraf Grimwood said it would cost more to prevent babies from becoming HIV-positive than to give nevirapine to pregnant women with HIV. He said there were cheaper and more accurate ways of collecting information about HIV.

There were no speakers in favour of Aids notification.

The Health Department's Deputy Director-General Harm Pretorius attended the briefing and said he would report to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

"It is safe to say that the regulations will not be passed in their current form," he said. He expected new regulations to be published by the end of the year.

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