SA MINISTER OF HEALTHARON MOTSOALEDI ON MITIGATION FOLLOWING US WITHDRAWAL OF FUNDS

Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi convened a media briefing to provide an update on the progress made to mitigate the impact of funding withdrawal by US Government on the country`s response to HIV/AIDS and TB program in South Africa.

“Under no circumstances are we going to allow this program to collapse due to Trumps decision to stop the funding”. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.

Over the past three weeks there have been numerous media statements, articles and claims by prominent
South Africans who are well known in the space of HIV/AIDS program is on the verge of collapse. It is rather unfortunate that the belief seems to be that the fight against HIV/AIDS can only happen in offices
and government buildings, public or private. If the campaign is not happening. We want to confirm that the fight against is in the HIV/AIDS in the villages, communities and townships, and even on the streets of this country, and that is where our focus is as it should.

”As a response we launched the world’s biggest HIV counselling, testing and treatment campaign. We had then announced that we are going to test 15 million South Africans, in one year as part of a massive campaign. I want to remind you that we were not given a chance, experts from all walks of life including the media never gave us any chance because they thought we were going to continue with the then Voluntary Counselling and Testing which relied on passive self-reporting where people would come into health facilities to ask to be tested. They attacked our targets as an unattainable pipedream. They said the best that we would do was to reach 3 million people after one year”.

Info Supplied