Deputy Speaker, Gabi Nxele wanted to give a gift to all women of the world. She voluntarily put her life on the line to take part in a field trial for an HIV-preventative medicine. She did this because, in her words, "People are dying here and I want to help scientists see if this will work." She was talking on television about her participation in the world-renowned Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa, Caprisa, 004 field trial of an antiretroviral microbicide vaginal gel. This gel, developed by the KwaZulu-Natal Aids Research Programme, helps prevent transmission of the HI virus during sexual intercourse. It gives women control over their sexual health, particularly those women whose partners refuse to use condoms.
For 30 months until March last year, 889 women in rural Vulindlela took part in the field trial whose success earned the respect of those working worldwide in the field of HIV prevention and Aids treatments.
Flushed with success, the Caprisa team devised a follow-up field trial that would include women attending the community's family planning clinic as well as the original participants. Its aim is to identify some of the less common adverse effects of the gel before it is licensed for wider and worldwide use. About R30 million for this trial was secured from UNAids and from our Department of Science and Technology.
On 18 November last year, an application was made to the Medicines Control Council, MCC, to approve the Caprisa 008 trial. It still sits there. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration would likely have approved a trial of this nature in less than 30 days. During the past year there has been much back and forth between Caprisa and the MCC. Each time Caprisa answers its queries, the MCC fires back a new question or insists on a new requirement for which no document is publicly available and of which the researchers - any researchers - are unaware.
Last week Caprisa's hopes were raised. The MCC agreed to the trial but insisted that it could not be extended beyond the original participants. Caprisa agreed to this compromise simply to get the trial going. But, wait: the MCC threw in a fresh obstacle to the approval of the trial. It created a new requirement. So Caprisa has called in the lawyers to challenge this.
This is ridiculous. The Cabinet must stop sitting idly by while this farce is taking place. We cannot let the ghosts of previous Cabinets' collective inertia on HIV/Aids haunt us in perpetuity. When I asked the Minister of Science and Technology to use her persuasive powers on her Health colleague she declined. And she is a cofunder of the field trial. The Minister of Health insisted in a letter to me that any initiative aimed at the prevention of the spread of HIV will always be handled as a priority. This is utter nonsense in the light of Caprisa's experience.
Prof Salim Karim, who heads Caprisa, says that once confirmed as effective, the vaginal gel has the potential to alter the course of the HIV pandemic. In the next 20 years in South Africa - if we act with speed and dedication to the anti-Aids cause - we can stop 1,3 million people from becoming infected. We can prevent the deaths of 826 000 people.
The MCC's brinkmanship with Caprisa indicates to the outside world that our government still lacks the leadership necessary to inject a sense of urgency in stopping HIV infections. Its indifference is an act of violence against the women who want to take control of their health. Its power play with Caprisa is a crime against the most vulnerable of women, not only in South Africa but in the rest of Africa.
Gabi and all the women of Vulindlela have demonstrated considerable courage, enthusiasm and dedication in playing a constructive role to fight Aids. It is time the Cabinet matched that courage. It must redress the silence of its past. It must instruct the MCC to stop its delaying tactics and get with the HIV-prevention programme. [Applause.]