The World Health Organisation reports that already this year 2.4 million people in Africa have died from Aids (up from to 2.2 million in the whole of 1999). More than 4 million South Africans live with HIV / AIDS, and there are 1,500 new infections daily. A large majority of those infected are working class people, and a majority of them are women. 13,5% - of South Africa's workforce is HIV positive. The United Nations predict that the country economic growth rate will decline by 0,3% - to 0,4% a year, resulting in a gross domestic product 17% lower than it would have been without AIDS.

In other words, HIV / AIDS is a here-and-now an emergency. This is a crisis situation that calls for extraordinary measures. The time for debate is over. The government must now take drastic action to fight this deadly killer.

The epidemic will have an immense impact on families, communities, the working class and the poor, the economy, the public health system and social services. Unless addressed dynamically it can undermine all of our transformation objectives.

Every 10 minutes a person with HIV / AIDS in Southern Africa dies. These deaths are premature and unnecessary. Why? Because there are medications that can and will keep adults and children with HIV / AIDS alive, healthy and productive for many years. Children are orphaned daily yet, with medicines their parents can live to take care of them. Price and excessive profits by drug companies denies poor people access to health.

COSATU therefore welcomes the agreement reached between the Government and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer to provide Fluconazole for people living with HIV / AIDS.

Government must ensure that these donations do not come with strings or conditions to give up our rights to other treatment access mechanisms such as compulsory licensing and parallel importing. Government must ensure that the drug companies also commit resources for distribution of these drugs and the availability of relevant technologies.

If the distribution of these drugs is to be effective, the health service infrastructure must be improved to ensure that there are accessible medical centres staffed by appropriately trained medical workers in every area. But treatment on its own is not enough.

For this reason, COSATU supports a dynamic and holistic response to HIV / AIDS which links access to information, awareness, prevention and counseling together with access to services, management, care and treatment of opportunistic diseases associated with HIV / AIDS. Therefore we need massive improvement in the public health and welfare systems which require increased resources and investment from government.

But this must be based on a government-led mass education campaign on openness and against discrimination against people living with HIV / AIDS. The rate of new infections can be drastically reduced and even eliminated through this mass campaign of public education, openness, and care and support for people and families living with HIV / AIDS. Again this requires the mobilisation of sufficient government resources. In this regard government must also take steps to direct and discipline private capital to release resources for this national effort.

This also applies to the conditions facing workers living with HIV / AIDS who face continuous and massive discrimination from employers, insurance companies, pension funds. In this regard government must enforce and expand the scope of existing legislation against discrimination in order to root out this unfair discrimination.

We remain committed to working in partnership with the government through the South African National Aids Council. We urge the government to consider favourably the demands to make SANAC more representative.

We are also in full support of the Medical and Related Substances Controls Amendments Act which was passed by our parliament in 1997. We urge government to put pressure on the Pharmaceutical companies to drop the challenge to the Act in the constitutional court. We also call on the government to exert pressure on the Constitutional Court to expedite its ruling on the matter.

Government must pursue the objective of accessing affordable HIV / AIDS drugs through parallel importation and compulsory licensing. The first step in this regard will be to officially declare HIV / AIDS as the national emergency for which we, as the country must urgently get safe and affordable drugs as the matter of urgency. This declaration must be followed by consistent steps by government to work with and against drug companies and international agencies in order to ensure speedy access to these drugs.

Government must also work to ensure that the minimum benefits under the Medical Schemes Act provide the affordable and effective treatment benefits for people living with HIV / AIDS.

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