CA_NWS_E1_200709_p06 C M Y K
6 MONDAY JULY 20 2009
SA goal to end
mom-to-child
Aids infection
Focus on TB too, Motlanthe says
SAPA and ANSO THOM
SOUTH Africa must eliminate
mother-to-child transmission
of Aids, says Deputy President
Kgalema Motlanthe.
“South Africa must ensure
that we dramatically decrease
the number of infants that are
infected so we can indeed have
a generation free of Aids,”
Motlanthe said at the 5th Inter-
national Aids Society confer-
ence in Cape Town yesterday.
“The importance of the vir-
tual elimination of mother-to-
child transmission of HIV was
reinforced to me in my meeting
with the executive director of
Unaids, Dr Michael Sedibe,” he
said.
“We have begun work on
strengthening our PMTCT
(Prevention of Mother To Child
Transmission) programme and
the Minister of Health will
soon officially launch our ac-
celerated plan to ensure that
we meet the targets set in the
National Strategic Plan for HIV
and STIs (sexually transferred
infefctions).”
That plan, drafted under the
leadership of the SA National
Aids Council (Sanac), sets tar-
gets for halving the HIV inci-
dence by 2011 as well as provid-
ing care, treatment and support
to 80 percent of people living
with HIV, Motlanthe said.
He also called for greater
attention to be given to tubercu-
losis (TB). “We wish to stress
that TB is curable even in the
Stigma driving African HIV rate
PARIS: Rates of HIV infection
among gays in some African
countries are 10 times those in
the general male population,
researchers said today.
They said stigma and poor
access to treatment or testing
are to blame.
A wall of silence, repression
and discrimination are ampli-
fying dangers for men who
have sex with men in sub-Saha-
ran Africa, the doctors said in
a paper published online by
The Lancet.
Researchers from Oxford
University looked at published
studies for HIV prevalence
from 2003 to 2009.
Prevalence among gays in
some parts of West Africa is 10
times that for the general male
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context of co-infection with
HIV, but additional measures to
ensure that HIV patients are
tested for TB and TB patients
are tested for HIV must become
the norm.”
Motlanthe said he would
propose that Sanac also focus
its attention on TB.
He said a World Health
Organisation/Stop TB Partner-
ship review of the national TB
programme had found that the
scheme had been strengthened
since the last external review
in 2005, with improved cure
rates and decreased defaulter
rates. However, there were still
problems with the programme.
“These include the need for
a more coherent strategy for
TB/HIV integration; strength-
ened infection control; and
strengthening TB control in the
mining industry as well as in
the correctional services.”
Motlanthe also drew atten-
tion to the relationship bet-
ween poverty and TB. He said
the country needed “strong
social and equitable economic
systems to underpin our health
systems”. “It is clear that
health conditions and out-
comes are related to a range of
social determinants,” he said.
Motlanthe also mentioned
other areas of concern.
population, they found.
Political, religious and
social hostility towards homo-
sexuality is entrenched in
many countries, and this
breeds isolation, harassment
and prejudice, enabling risky
sex practices to multiply.
“Unprotected anal sex is
commonplace, knowledge and
access to inappropriate risk
prevention measure are inade-
quate and… in some contexts,
many men who have sex with
men engage in transactional
sex,” the paper said.
The paper said secrecy was
so entrenched that data about
gay sex behaviour in Africa
was often sketchy or absent.
“There’s surprisingly little
known,” said lead investigator
The
“Challenges, however, re-
main. These include: getting
more of our people tested;
starting treatment as early as
possible; improving adherence;
decreasing loss to follow-up;
improving laboratory turn-
around-times; and strengthen-
ing drug-supply management.”
However, he said, each of
these areas was “receiving the
necessary attention”.
Meanwhile, Unaids’s Sedibe
said it was critical to ensure
that the programme to prevent
the transmission of HIV/Aids
from mother to child was im-
plemented widely as it pre-
sented the best chance of elim-
inating paediatric HIV.
“It is virtually eliminated in
the rest of the world, and there
is no reason why we cannot
achieve it in Africa.”
Sedibe said he had met
members of the South African
government to “follow up on
the ambitious and inspiring
goals” of treating 80 percent of
those needing antiretrovirals
and halving new infections by
2011”. He said Minister of
Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi
had indicated that the govern-
ment was committed to “pick-
ing up the pace of action”.
“Political commitment is
key to achieving anything. You
cannot break the silence with-
out political leadership and
political leadership determines
the space afforded to civil soci-
ety input, which brings about
the social change needed.”
Adrian Smith. “What little evi-
dence we do have suggests that
men who have sex with men
are a vulnerable group…
across sub-Saharan Africa.”
The paper said: “In the early
1980s, silence equals death
became a rallying cry” for gays
in the US.
“Nearly three decades later
in sub-Saharan African the
silence remains, driven by cul-
tural, religious and political
unwillingness to accept men
who have sex with men as
equal members of society.”
Around 33 million people
have HIV, according to figures
issued last year by the UN
agency Unaids. Two-thirds of
them live south of the Sahara.
– Sapa-AFP
OM/14/6917583
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NEWS
Blood donors with flu symptoms told to wait two weeks
STAFF REPORTERS
THE GROWING number of
swine flu cases in South Africa
has led the Western Province
Blood Transfusion Service to
extend its deferral period for
donors showing flu symptoms
to two weeks.
Spokeswoman Leandi le
Roux said any donor with signs
of normal flu would usually
have to wait a week before
donating blood.
“But now with the outbreak
of swine flu, we have prolonged
EXIT LEFT: Renowned Baxter Theatre director and chief executive Mannie Manim is bowing out, and will leave the theatre in the hands of his long-time friend,
playwright and director Lara Foot Newton, from November.
Curtain falls on Manim’s tenure as director of Baxter
RICHIE DUCHON
Staff Writer
SOUTH African theatre lumi-
nary Mannie Manim says the
real beginning of his long and
distinguished career as a pro-
ducer and artistic director was
when he saw Athol Fugard’s No
Good Friday in his early teens.
“It was totally different from
the cucumber sandwich, gin-
and-tonic kind of fare that I’d
been involved in,” he recalls.
“This was ‘people in accents
from the streets where I lived’
kind of thing … it busted my
head open and made me realise
that theatre can be accessible to
anyone.”
Manim says that play
started his journey as a pro-
ducer, director and lighting
designer for some of the coun-
try’s most important political
protest theatre of the past 30
years.
our deferral period to two been expected, with blood units
weeks. Donors are aware of the of 475ml increasing by close to
criteria and we try to explain 1 500 last month.
the process to them.” Last year, during national
Some 70 893 cases of the new blood donor month in June,
H1N1 swine flu have been con- 10 426 units were collected, and
firmed worldwide, with South this increased to 11 837 units
Africa having 119, including 14 last month.
in the Western Cape.
The illness presents itself
with cold- or flu-like symptoms,
such as a fever, sore throat,
runny nose, nasal congestion,
coughing or muscular aches.
“We are working very hard
to gain new donors and to edu-
cate them about various blood
products,” Le Roux said.
However, even though
stocks were good, the position
Le Roux said blood stocks could change “at any minute”
were much better than had and attendance at mobile clin-
November she will become the
Rondebosch theatre’s fourth
director in its 32-year history
and the first woman director.
Foot Newton has been work-
ing for and alongside Manim
for more than 20 years.
She even remembers experi-
encing her own “lightbulb”
theatre moment at Manim’s
Market Theatre, which he co-
founded with playwright
Barney Simon in Johannes-
burg in the 1970s .
“That night changed my life
ENTERING: Lara Foot Newton in the same way as when Man-
nie saw (Fugard’s play). I said
whatever those guys are doing
Now he is stepping down as on stage, I want to do that,”
head of the Baxter Theatre, Foot Newton recalls.
where he has served as director Manim is well known for
and chief executive since 2000. having diversified the Baxter’s
Manim will leave the the- offerings during his tenure as
atre in the hands of his long- head of the theatre.
time friend, playwright and He remembers the first
director Lara Foot Newton. director of the Baxter, John
When she takes over in Slemon, inviting Manim’s
Communities to march for service delivery
THE MACASSAR backyarders, prop-
ped up by a host of communities from
Khayelitsha and Gugulethu, were
expected to march to Mayor Dan
Plato’s office this morning to demand
delivery on services.
The backyarders, who recently
unsuccessfully attempted to invade
i n g Fe a t u r e s
Forthcom
RAMADAAN
The Cape Argus aims
to publish the feature on
20 AUGUST 2009
BOOKING DEADLINE:
COPY DEADLINE:
TO ADVERTISE CONTACT IRMA DEBIQUE
Tel: 021 488 4158 Cell: 083 946 0428
e-mail: irma.debique@inl.co.za
ics was usually low during win-
ter, she said. The non-profit
organisation aims to collect 700
units each day.
The WP Blood Transfusion
Service gained more than 200
new donors last month, but Le
Roux said the number of
donations had dropped in the
first half of this month.
Provincial health authori-
ties said there was no reason to
panic over swine flu as schools
re-open. Western Cape health
department spokeswoman
Faiza Steyn said national and
PICTURE: BRENTON GEACH
Market Theatre company to
bring its shows to Cape Town
in the 1980s.
“There was a big commer-
cial segment of the (Baxter’s)
programme (then), and we
came with a more gritty, cur-
rent, what we used to call
‘newspaper theatre’ – the kind
of stuff that was going on in
the townships, where people
couldn’t get to in those days,”
Manim says.
His goal as director of the
Baxter was to incorporate
those kind of shows into the
theatre’s programme.
“What I was wanting to do
when I came to Cape Town was
hear what the feeling was on
the ground of the theatre-
makers in the city and to try to
give them a platform to pro-
duce their work.
“I think we’ve begun doing
that,” he chuckles in a modest,
self-deprecating way.
city land, said the march was in sup-
port of their demand for land where
they could put their shacks, among
other things.
Housing activist Mzonke Poni said
yesterday that the communities
planned to engage in “militant action”
ahead of the march. – Staff Reporter
OM/17/6917580
17 AUGUST 2009
18 AUGUST 2009
provincial medical teams
would monitor schools in the
event of any cluster outbreaks
of the flu.
She urged pupils with flu-
like symptoms to stay at home
for a number of days “to speed
the recovery process”.
G Anyone willing to donate
blood can do so at one of the
transfusion service’s perma-
nent centres, at N1 City and 22
Long Street, Cape Town. Alter-
natively, phone 021 507 6300 or
SMS 33507 to find the nearest
blood donor clinic.
Manim says one of the high-
lights of his tenure at the Bax-
ter was bringing Foot Newton
on as a resident director for
three years.
“Lara brought a direct link
with the creative world of
South Africa. She’s talking to
the new creative forces … and
starting to let them know that
hopefully there’ll be a home for
their work in the Baxter in the
future,” he said.
Manim says he hopes the
Baxter Theatre will remain a
place where artists can experi-
ment and where the calibre of
the theatre is not judged only
by results at the box office.
“We really like to see minds
challenged as well as seats
filled.
“And I think if I’ve achieved
anything in the nine years, it’s
to spread the sense of owner-
ship of the Baxter to all the
communities in this region.”
Boy, 6,
killed in
scooter
crash
STAFF REPORTER
A SIX-year-old boy, who
was riding on his
mother’s motor scooter,
was killed in a horrific
accident in Durban yes-
terday afternoon.
David Williams, who
was wearing a helmet
and was on the back
of his mother Sandra’s
scooter died instantly
when the scooter
collided with a
16-wheeler truck near
the Rossburgh station in
South Coast Road.
“The child was
crushed by the truck…
the wheels went over
him and the helmet,”
said Netcare 911
spokesman Chris Botha.
The boy’s traumatised
mother was admitted to
Wentworth Hospital.
The truck driver has
been charged with culpa-
ble homicide.
Clairwood residents
are planning to protest
against high volumes of
truck traffic on the roads
in the neighbourhood.