Mr Speaker, I was privileged to represent the Pan-African Parliament and the Parliament of South Africa when more than 3 000 people came together at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Aids from 8 to 10 July 2011 in New York. The meeting provided an opportunity for countries to take stock of progress and challenges on HIV and Aids and to adopt the declaration entitled "United for Universal Access towards Zero New Infections, Zero Stigma and Zero Aids-Related Deaths", which we are debating here today.
South Africa has made great strides since we all agreed that HIV did indeed cause Aids and the roll-out of antiretrovirals, ARVs, has seen a decline in the infection rate. The recent announcement by the Deputy President of access to ARVs to persons with a CD4 count of 350 is indeed most welcom and perhaps in time we may see a roll-out of ARVs for a CD4 count of 500.
The downside is that our maternal mortality and infant mortality rates are not improving. Current statistics for infant mortality sits at 104 per 1 000 live births and maternal mortality is at 150 per 10 000. The latest news from Statistics SA is that South Africa will in all probability not realise these critical Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, by 2015.
South Africa has largely adopted a traditional market approach in treating HIV and Aids and the target market initially was only pregnant woman. This will not be adequate for the next phase of the Aids response as per the declaration. In order to realise this, we need to have a comprehensive and sustainable approach to the pandemic.
Now I ask: What about other vulnerable groups like drug users, men who have sex with men, sex workers, migrants and prisoners? Reaching zero infections in these so-called unconventional groups will be difficult as they fall outside the social protection net. Resources allocated for prevention services to these groups are either minimal or nonexistent.
South Africa has neither a programme of opiate substitution therapy for drug users who are HIV positive, nor a comprehensive programme of treatment, testing and counselling for sex workers. We could learn serious lessons from both India and Thailand's models instead of the current "ostrich approach" which prevails.
Dr Motsoaledi, South Africa's Minister of Health, reported at the United Nations meeting that HIV in South Africa is now a gender-based disease - meaning that it is spread by men but suffered by women. A speaker from Indonesia went further to say that the 4M group - that is, millions of mobile men with money living in a macho environment - urgently needs to be targeted. These men don't only ignore the calls for actions against HIV, but our education programmes also ignore them.
It was the generally agreed opinion that unless gender-based power relations shift, we will not be able to win the battle. The year 2011 marks 30 years of Aids. In this time more than 25 million lives have been lost and more than 60 million people worldwide have been infected by HIV. Each day more than 7 000 people including 1 000 children, are infected. For every one person on treatment, two new infections occur.
One can see from the depressing statistics that the epidemic continues to outpace the response. In view of these alarming statistics, it is very necessary to shape our country's HIV response if we are to reach the declaration's target of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero Aids-related deaths.
We can take the first steps towards a world of zero, zero and zero by, firstly, putting people living with HIV at the centre of the response; secondly, protecting the human rights, security and dignity of women and girls; thirdly, by eliminating gender inequality; fourthly, by helping young people get access to life-saving information, such as how to negotiate safe sex and using condoms, by using social networking systems, which they seem more inclined to listen to; and fifthly, by aggressively promoting the merits of treatment 2.0. This is an invaluable United Nations initiative which simplifies HIV treatment to an easy-to-use pill and at- home monitoring, which also serves as a prevention tool.
Finally, we need all partners to come together in global solidarity as never before. With these few steps we can get to zero new infections, zero stigma and zero Aids-related deaths. [Applause.]