There are substantiated claims that as many as 42 babies have been accidentally infected with HIV at South Africa's public hospitals. The information does not originate with the Department of Health, as one would expect, but comes from doctors and non-governmental organisations such as the government's long-time nemesis - the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).

Not only does the government perpetuate inadequate infection control measures, which are responsible for the bulk of HIV infections, there is no requirement on hospitals to acknowledge the problem, monitor it or follow up on individual cases.

As a result, many more infected babies may have never made it onto the list.

Yes, hospital staff are notoriously overworked and the resources at its disposal are limited but, as is often the case, monitoring is a matter of observing additional guidelines. The existing list of infected babies shows that doctors do not lack private initiative.

Yet sporadic reports on the appearance of HIV in babies with HIV-negative mothers, following stays in public hospitals, compiled by well-meaning volunteers, are no answer to the gravity of the challenge. We need nothing less than a comprehensive strategy from the minister.

A precedent of sorts was set two years ago when 22 babies died from Klebsiella infection at the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in Phoenix in 2005. The IFP did its best to publicise the case at the time. In the end, the Minister of Health sent up a high profile task team to investigate the outbreak and the hospital had a comprehensive make-over.

Today the same minister must account for the fact that there is an unmonitored, unrecorded and apparently uncontained plague of HIV infections of babies at state hospitals. Under no circumstances should the minister be allowed to let her unwillingness to recognise the extent of the HIV/Aids crisis stand in the way of properly investigating this preventable tragedy.

Dr Lionel Mtshali MPP
Leader of the Official Opposition

Contact: Dr Lionel Mtshali, 083 256 4902