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An antiretroviral treatment centre, providing
free medication, has been opened in the Malvern Clinic, to treat people with
HIV and Aids in the deprived areas on the eastern edge of the city.
THE City of Johannesburg has expanded its antiretroviral (ARV)
treatment programme to its Malvern Clinic, with the establishment of an antiretroviral
treatment centre inside the facility.
The portfolio head of health, Bengeza Mthombeni, gave the key-note address
At the new facility, people from
disadvantaged communities around the clinic - including George Goch, City Deep,
Cleveland and Denver - will now be able to get free
antiretroviral treatment.
The centre was accredited by health
officials from the national and provincial departments of health on Thursday,
25 June. It forms part of the City's HIV/Aids strategy, which aims to reduce
drastically the spread of HIV/Aids in the metro.
Through this strategy, the City has set up
various programmes focusing on education, prevention, community support
projects and the rollout of ARVs.
The Malvern Clinic focus primarily on antenatal,
adult curative and chronic treatment with a doctor's support, mother and child
health care, sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health and
tuberculosis treatment, as well as immunisation and growth monitoring of babies
and children.
Treatment for the prevention of mother to
child transmission of HIV/Aids is also on offer, as is treatment for
reproductive health care and cancer screening for adults.
Help
Giving the keynote address at the ceremony held to celebrate the centre's accreditation,
the new portfolio head of health, Bengeza Mthombeni, said it would
significantly help those living in the area who were infected with and affected
by HIV.
"The City ... recognises that it has a
pivotal role to play in the fight against HIV/Aids as it is affected by the
day-to-day impact of this epidemic."
The clinic in Malvern was moved to its
present, purpose-built building in the latter part of 2008; prior to that, it
operated from unsuitable rented space. It is on the eastern periphery of the city,
in an area characterised by socio-economic challenges, a high rate of
unemployment, decrepit tenements and infrastructure; crime levels and indigence
are sky-high.
According to the City's health department,
an estimated 40 000 people have been treated at the Malvern facility since May
2007.
Mthombeni said the severity of the HIV/Aids
epidemic was aligned to the area's deprivation levels, the low status of women
and other socio-economic factors, which all exacerbate the spread of infections.
"Even with the knowledge of how to protect oneself from infection, such
information may not always be usable in daily situations of economic and social
disadvantage that characterise the lives of many young people in poor [communities]."
Intensified response
To face up to the challenges of HIV/Aids, Mthombeni noted that the City required
an intensified, comprehensive, multispectral response. "[We need to] provide
tools to prevent infection and provide services designed to mitigate the wide-ranging
impact of the epidemic."
A study released in December 2007 by the
Joint United Nations Programme on Aids (UNAids) and the World Health Organization
(WHO) found that in many cases, HIV/Aids prevention programmes were not
reaching poorer communities who were most at risk of infection.
It found that in South Africa, more than 25 million
people had died of Aids-related illnesses since 1981.
The latest world statistics on the HIV/Aids
pandemic - published by UNAIDS and the WHO - indicate an increase in the number
of people who are in immediate need of antiretroviral drugs.
They also report that 29,7 percent of
pregnant women seen at public sector clinics in Joburg in the past three years
were HIV positive. "The impact of HIV and Aids in Johannesburg cannot be overstated. As the
powerhouse of the country, a threat to the social and economic health of Johannesburg represents a
risk to the entire country," said Mthombeni.
The City had four ARV treatment sites, five
referral sites and three workplace voluntary counselling and testing sites. "We
need to understand that we are fighting a war that is ‘bigger than us', which
is HIV/Aids," he added.
There are 83 primary health care facilities
dotted around Joburg.
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