Scrap Voluntary HIV/ AIDS Testing and Counselling

DR RUTH RABINOWITZ MP
IFP SPOKESPERSON ON HEALTH

04 June 2007

IFP policy has long called for a change in strategy towards testing for HIV/AIDS, pointing out that VCT puts the right of privacy above the right to non discrimination.

I has become a mantra associated with AIDS around the world largely because of the lobby in the USA that wanted to protect gays from social pressure when HIV was first identifies as a disease of homosexuals. In Africa where levels of infection are so high, it has become a foolish, politically correct hindrance to dealing with an epidemic that should long have been under control.

Politics is not keeping abreast of science, since medicines are now available to keep persons alive for decades with HIV, particularly if they detect the condition early.

The least that should be done is to have routine testing in clinics and hospitals with an opt out facility. No persons testing positive should be entitled to refuse to know their results. Pre test counselling should be available on a mass scale at post offices, schools, university canteens and public sports events. The IFP also proposes a mandatory pre marital testing procedure to ensure that at least when persons want to have unprotected sex they must know their HIV status.

The less our policy is based on the need for secrecy, the more HIV/AIDS will become a routine illness.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Dr Ruth Rabinowitz MP: 082 579 3698
Liezl van der Merwe: 083 611 7470