Loud Whispers

Glenda Gray and Salim Abdool Karim addressed a pre-conference training for journalist in Durban. (Salma Patel)

As delegates prepare to gather in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, for the SA AIDS Conference on Tuesday, the centre for the AIDS Programme Research in South Africa (Caprisa) says young women can now protect themselves against HIV.

His statement comes after the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that a drug that prevents women from getting infected with HIV. Truvada is on the essential drugs list.

The main source of HIV in young girls between 14 and 24 are sleeping with men on average nine year older than they are.

Caprisa’s Director,  Prof. Salim Abdool Karim says until now men were the only ones who could protect themselves against HIV with condoms and circumcision, now women can take Truvada.

Karim says, “The incidents rate for HIV continue to be high, unacceptably high and in particular it continues to be high among young women, young women continue to bear the brunt of the HIV epidemic and they continue to have the highest rate of HV in this country and they are in fact are the driving force if you look at our overall HIV incidents rate.”

He says the country cannot impact the overall incidents rate until they impact the young girls as they are key to controlling the HIV epidemic.

However, Karim says, “We now have a new technology that women can use. They don’t need the man’s permission. They can use it and it’s a daily tablet called Truvado. It’s up to them and they can use it and that is a new opportunity.”

Truvada has been on the market for a while, however, it was not dispensed in government clinics.

He says, “So now that situation has changed because the WHO announced that Truvada can be on the essential drugs list. The moment the WHO says it’s on the essential drugs list that means every health care facility has to dispense it as it’s an essential drug.”

The Professor says the conference is going to be an important opportunity to receive feedback on what progress we have made regarding HIV.

“ I think the main theme is while, we are making progress on treatment scale up. We are really not making any progress on the prevention side. The number of new HIV infections globally is about two million a year and it’s been two million a year for the last five years and that is very concerning. We are not dropping the number of new infections at a globally and it also applies to here in South Africa.”

Karim says, “The biggest component of what is unique in South Africa is why we should have a conference in South Africa?.

I think it’s because one out of every five people living with HIV lives here in South Africa, that important, I mean we have one fifth of all people living with HIV and we are only less than 1% of the world’s population, so it grossly disproportionate.”

The HIV epidemic has been steadily coming down in South Africa. “…in  fact when you think back 15 years ago and you think of what we have now, it’s a dramatic change in the HIV incident, we have half of what we had 15 years ago.”