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Testing and education will be the thrust of World Aids Day activities, and six antiretroviral treatment sites will be opened in Soweto, Midrand and Alex.
ONCE again, the City of Johannesburg will commemorate World Aids Day on Wednesday, 1 December, a day on which everyone is asked to remember those affected by and infected with HIV/Aids.
Executive mayor Amos Masondo will open an ART site at Sinqobile Clinic on World Aids Day (Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)
Under the theme “Universal access and human rights”, it will hold a number of activities focusing on HIV/Aids and how spreading the HI virus can be avoided.
In the morning, Executive Mayor Amos Masondo will make a special appearance on television station E.tv to talk about Joburg’s social mobilisation programme. The programme centres on the HIV counselling and testing (HCT) campaign.
In addition, the City will also have clinicians and testing equipment at the E.tv offices in Hyde Park for the whole day for people who want to be tested.
Later, Masondo and his entourage will launch an antiretroviral treatment (ART) site at the Sinqobile Clinic in Meadowlands, Soweto. Even though the main event of the day will take place in Meadowlands, another five clinics will also activate their ART sites on the day.
They are: Zondi Clinic, Klipspruit West Clinic and Green Village Clinic in Soweto; Ebony Park Clinic in Midrand; and Eastbank Clinic in Alexandra. This will increase the number of City ART clinics to 25, according to Nkosinathi Nkabinde, the City’s health spokesperson.
Education
After the launch, there will be a door-to-door campaign around the Sinqobile Clinic. With education as its driver, people will be told about antiretrovirals and their benefits for people infected with HIV.
In the evening, Switch On the Light for Rights will take place at the Metro Centre.
“On 1 December 2010, the City of Johannesburg will be joining over 100 countries globally in the Light for Rights campaign where the executive mayor, Amos Masondo, will be switching on the lights depicting the massive HIV ribbon on the southern side of the Johannesburg Metro Centre building,” Nkabinde explained.
The red HIV ribbon light was expected to remain lit for two months in recognition of the human right to healthy living, especially for those people living with HIV/Aids and their families. The Switch On the Light for Rights ceremony will start at 6pm at the Metro Civic Centre, 158 Loveday Street, Braamfontein.
World Aids Day, observed on 1 December each year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the Aids pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. It is common to hold memorials on the day to honour people who have died from the disease.
Statistics
More than 25 million people died from Aids-related illnesses between 1981 and 2007, and as of 2007, an estimated 33,2 million people worldwide are living with HIV, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history.
Despite recent improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the virus claimed an estimated two million lives in 2007, of which about 270 000 were children.
Earlier this year, the South African government launched a massive HCT campaign. It calls on each and every South African to demonstrate that they are responsible by taking an HIV test. The target is for 15 million South Africans to be tested by the end of June 2011.
Through the campaign, treatment is provided for children under the age of one regardless of their CD4 count; all tuberculosis treatment sites also test and treat for HIV and vice versa; and all pregnant HIV-positive women with a CD4 count of 350 or less are given antiretrovirals.
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