SOUTH AFRICA HIV/Aids ADVOCATE CONDEMNS GOVERNMENTS

By Mercy Chaluma

Dudu Mabona, a South African HIV/Aids advocate attending the on going Southern Africa Social forum in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe has condemned governments in the region of over heavily relying on Non governmental organization in advocating for HIV/Aids programmes.

Mabona said in an interview that governments in the region were not doing much in the fight of the deadly pandemic and they had left much of the responsibility in the the orgnisations which she said were having more impact in the war on the pandemic.

The advocate gave an example of the South African experience where she said the government was failing to provide the life prolonging anti-retro-viral drugs to its HIV positive community.

“Our health minister has been encouraging people to use alternatives to ARVs like ginger, beet root and garlic which are not effective life prolonging drugs,” she said.
She highlighted the slow pace which governments are taking in making female condoms easily accessible saying this was making women to be highly vulnerable to the killer pandemic.

“Female condoms in the whole southern Africa are mostly distributed by non-governmental organizations,” he said

Concurring with Mabona, senior community HIV/AIDS facilitator at GOAL Malawi Ethel Chavula said that governments in the southern Africa region have not been promoting the female condom thereby making women more vulnerable to the disease.

She said provision of female condoms at government hospitals would have a greater impact in the HIV/Aids fight as women have little control in negotiating for safer sex putting them at men’s mercy in the process.

Currently governments in the region are only providing free male condoms.