Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, Durban

Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, in

Durban National Treatment Conference on HIV/Aids

27 June, 2002

Chairperson, President Willy Madisha Comrades and Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen

We are extremely happy for the opportunity to speak and participate in this august National Treatment Conference on HIV/AIDS. The conference is a realisation of the COSATU call made after our collective triumph over the greedy pharmaceutical companies last year following their withdrawal of the court challenge on the Medicines and Related Substances Amendment Act.

As the nation we are challenged! A silent war is raging - many of our people die silently from the killer disease HIV/AIDS. Most of these deaths can be prevented if we act in concert under a comprehensive strategy for prevention, treatment, support and care. Otherwise the prospects for our society are too dim to contemplate. Our families, our economy, indeed the broader society, will suffer from this silent war.

The conference takes place at an opportune moment in our history - a time when the dark clouds that have surrounded debates on HIV/AIDS are receding. We must all congratulate the government for its 17 April pronouncements on HIV/AIDS. This closes a chapter of ugly time consuming and counterproductive debate and ushers a new era of a genuine partnership and unity in action between the government and the civil society formations. The time is now to stop acting from different sides of the fence - it's a luxury we cannot afford while the pandemic disease decimates our people.

We stand at a crucial period in our history - we either move forward together or perish. The time for action is now - we have to act to fight the pandemic before it consumes all of us.
As workers, students, youth, doctors, nurses, hospital staff and professional, government leaders, as well as every citizen of the Southern Hemisphere - Africa, we are presented with the most daunting challenge in our lifetime.

This conference brings together every section of our country's population as a response to this challenge. It is about finding a concrete role for the civil society in the continuing battle against the epidemic.

This conference seeks to take forward the spirit of partnerships between civil society and the governments. It must help define our roles as different players in the struggle against the HIV/AIDS. Most importantly the focus on HIV/AIDS help us to strengthen the existing prevention strategy as part of the consolidation of the HIV/AIDS strategy in order to make a contribution as the civil society in the struggle to have a comprehensive and coherent HIV/AIDS strategy.

From this conference, we expect practical campaigns and measures that will help our people prevent the spread of HIV, and live longer healthy lives if they already have it.

We all know why we have to unite to stop the AIDS epidemic. Even if you are not yourself living with HIV, you surely have a friend or relative who has the virus. All of us have been to too many funerals in recent years. All of us know children who have been orphaned by AIDS; many of us are looking after them. No one can deny any longer that, unless we act together, AIDS will have a devastating impact on our society, our communities and our families.

Now, we must see what we can do to prevent AIDS and reduce its impact. This conference should help us all share our knowledge, so that we can improve the life of people with AIDS and prevent more people from getting it.

For COSATU, the central strategy for stopping AIDS is solidarity - solidarity with people with HIV and AIDS, solidarity to exert pressure on pharmaceutical companies to reduce the price of the drugs that can help us treat the diseases, solidarity to exert pressure on the private sector to play its role, develop workplace policies and release resource for prevention and treatment, solidarity where necessary to exert pressure on government to release more resources to fight the epidemic, and solidarity to stop the virus from spreading in our societies. That is why we support the slogan: AIDS - A New Struggle! Against this oppressor, as against the apartheid regime before 1994, solidarity is our only hope. Divided we will surely fail.

Solidarity forms the basis for ensuring openness about AIDS, which is the only way to make education and prevention a reality on a broad scale. Only if people know they will not be discriminated against and treated as polecats, only when they will not be subjected to inhumane treatment by their own families, friends and colleagues in the unions and workplaces can they be open about their HIV status. Only if we can talk openly about this threat can we ensure the widespread use of preventive measures. And only if people can be open about HIV can we develop broad-based and explicit education campaigns.

Solidarity is also critical for caring for people with HIV and AIDS. This is not about charity, but about maintaining the integrity and cohesion of our society. We need consciously to develop support systems for our people, at work, in our communities and in our families. It should no longer be possible for parents to let their children die in silence, without even seeking treatment, because of their fear of this disease and the neighbours' reaction. It should no longer be possible for husbands to throw their wives out of the house when they find out they have HIV. As workers, as members of families and communities, we have to stand fast against this kind of barbaric behaviour. Only when we turn the tide so that those who discriminate end being the ones facing the wrath of the communities.

The state has a key role to play in building solidarity. So is the trade union movement, the churches and the rest of the civil society.

Government has the resources for mass-based educational programmes. We at COSATU can help through our own media; other organisations in civil society also do their best. But the government has far more resources and expertise, as well as access to the schools.

Unemployment and poverty contributes immensely in killing those infected faster than it would on the rich. Government and a more socially responsible private sector have a unique role to play in this regard. The state can provide treatment and ensure that through its programmes poverty and unemployment is eliminated. The provision of the basic services such as clean running water, access to health care, education and electricity are important ingredients in a fight against HIV/AIDS.

The development of a comprehensive social security system including endorsing most of the Taylor Commission's recommendation in particular on the introduction of the Basic Income Grant and the removal of the means test for childcare grants. In this regard we must welcome the Taylor Commission's report recommendation to extend the child support grant to all the children up to the age of eighteen without the means test as a transitional measurer towards a Basic Income Grant. We urge our government to endorse these recommendations as it can make an important contribution in fighting the scourge of HIV/AIDS and defeating poverty.

Most of our people are already poor, and AIDS pushes them into destitution. They end up dying because they cannot afford the medication they need - and their children can end up as orphans, with no means of support. The government has already made progress in improving its treatment and strengthening the welfare system to address these problems; we need here to discuss how to improve on the existing measures. We need to participate in the campaign to ensure we register as many children to receive child grants as possible

This conference must help us express our solidarity with people with HIV in practical ways.
It must help us find ways to end discrimination against people with HIV, including in employment. We need a campaign to ensure that every union member, every student, every activist and public servant supports people with HIV in their workplaces, their communities and their families. More: we need to develop strategies to ensure that the Press stops sensationalising HIV and reports openly, accurately and soberly on ways to cope with it.

Together with government, we need to establish pro-active campaigns to help people with HIV and AIDS and their families through home-based care, support and counselling. We need to improve the welfare net for people with AIDS, and ensure that our retirement funds make provision for people with AIDS and for AIDS orphans. We must develop a campaign against discriminatory practices of the insurance industry and ensure equal access to insurance for all South Africans including those living with HIV/AIDS.

We need to develop mass education and prevention campaigns. Education on HIV must be integrated in all life skills programmes, from the schools to ABET to sectoral and workplace plans. It must be integrated into our media and cultural productions, which today do more to replicate stereotypes than to ensure rational responses to the epidemic.

Our education programmes must emphasise that safe sex is the only real protection. It must teach our children how to negotiate safe sex. It must be linked to respect for women's rights, including the ability to refuse sex and demand that their partners wear condom. Quite clearly as long we still have a patriarchal society that undermines gender equality we are far from defeating HIV/AIDS. Statistics bears testimony to this unequal relationship between men and women. A successful NDR that addresses the gender question is an important part of a comprehensive campaign.

In addition to a massive general education campaign, we need special training programmes for public servants who work with people with HIV, especially teachers, nurses, correctional officers and police. This critical layer of workers, which is the arms and legs of the RDP must in particular ensure that it is a crying shoulder for those affected and infected instead of treating our people in an inhumane manner. Of course we recognise and pay tribute to the unequalled contribution made by many in the public service who go beyond the call of duty to provide counselling and support to our people.

In terms of prevention, it is critical that all our people, including the poor and those in rural areas and prisons, have easy access to condoms. Effective prevention also requires much more rapid roll out of Nevirapine, to stop the transmission to newborn babies; and a vast improvement in access to treatment for women who have been raped.

The new society we seek to build is based on solidarity and acceptable moral standards. The Deputy President call for morale regeneration has to be supported by all. In this regard this requires that we change our attitudes and behaviour in our quest to combat HIV/AIDS.

And of course we need to improve treatment. This conference will look at options for ensuring that all our people have access to affordable and effective treatment, including anti-retrovirals, treatment for opportunistic diseases and treatment for STDs. But we also need to look at how we can empower people to understand the treatment options and demand the care they need. Studies show that when people with AIDS have family and community support and know the possibilities, they will live longer and healthier lives.

We recognise that the pharmaceutical companies have mostly set exorbitant prices on the most effective AIDS treatments. This conference has to develop two kinds of strategies to deal with this problem.

First, we need to take into account the cost of not providing treatment, not just at the cost of the medicines themselves. That cost appears in human suffering, but also in the loss of productivity, the need to continuously replace trained people, and to look after millions of AIDS orphans. Given these costs, government should give AIDS treatment a higher prioritisation, even if it means relaxing some of our very tight fiscal targets or cutting back the military expenditure.

Second, we need to find ways to reduce the costs of medicines through use of generics as well as a worldwide campaign directed at the pharmaceutical companies. The WTO must legalise the import of generics, and not just production of them; and the South African government must move rapidly to begin to produce generic medications here, to supply all of the African continent if necessary. We should also look into the possibilities of improving community and home based care, which would relieve the burden on our hospitals. In short government must find a political willingness to utilise fully the weapons at its disposal that it acquired through the Medicines and Related Substances Amendment Act.

For far too long, we have focused on the role the government has to play and did not give enough tension to the private sector. Capital in this country in particular the mining industry and agriculture benefited directly from apartheid social engineering. The migrant labour system, the single sex hostel system, the pass laws and other influx control measures were policies designed by the apartheid masters to prop up the industries of South Africa. The migrant labour system and single sex contributes to the spread of HIV.
Whist the situation has slightly changed in the recent years, for far too long the employers ignored the spread of the disease. Far too few companies have HIV/AIDS workplace policy that responds to the epidemic. Far too few companies contribute to the national effort to fight the scourge of the HIV/AIDS. The unions have so far not put enough pressure on the private sector to contribute the campaign. We cannot claim to have a comprehensive HIV/AIDS campaign if the private sector is left untouched.

This conference must also find ways to transform the health care system in South Africa. The current health care system is skewed toward private health care, which cares, only for a few. The public health system is under-funded, faces chronic shortage of essential staff and care for far too many people without adequate resources. Yet, it is the only hope for the working people, the aged, and the sick. An effective public health system is a key pillar of the strategy to combat HIV/AIDS including opportunistic diseases.

It is for this reason that COSATU believe this conference should also focus on a broader treatment strategy to combat many curable diseases that are killing our people. We should take note of the resolutions of the government convened Health Conference and build on them as we continue to lay a foundation for a social consensus on health care delivery.
Comrades, we have set high expectations for this conference. But we have no other choice. We cannot stand idly by and let our people suffer and die, when the remedy lies within our hands. We must unite in this new struggle to liberate our people from this new oppressor.

� COSATU