An article by the South African Medical Research Council, SAMRC, on HIV-TB pathogenesis and treatment advises that HIV infection is the leading cause of deaths in South Africa. This we know. It also advises that South Africa has the third life highest human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, related TB problem in the world with as many as 60% of HIV patients being coinfected with TB. With 7,7 million people living with HIV in South Africa, this tells us that over 4,6 million people have both HIV and TB.
Added to our woes of vast unemployment, substandard living conditions in many areas, extreme poverty, the lack of decent water supplies and a failing health system we now have to manage the Coronavirus pandemic too. 90% of TB deaths occur in low and middle income countries and right now South Africa is up there high on the list. The most vulnerable of all of our citizens in South Africa in light of the Coronavirus are the
7,7 million poor people with HIV and the 4,6 million who have to deal with both HIV and TB.
We are sitting at the precipice of the biggest crisis South Africa has ever been faced with. How do we sleep at night? The fact is that we must accept this. We are in this together and united we must be to fight and win this battle. But were we prepared for this battle? Judging by the suddenness of this meeting ahead of a global conference ... we must assume, no.
Tick box exercises are a farce and will not help us as a country nor will it inspire confidence in our abilities in the rest of the world. We are in the middle of TB awareness month. However, the entire focus on health in the last couple of weeks has been the Coronavirus and indeed, it is a pandemic of global proportions. However, what actions have been taken on the awareness of TB in this month, particularly in the light of the double jeopardy?
If just 1% of our HIV-TB patients contract Covid-19, which is approximately 46 000 people, will our designated hospitals and quarantine wards cope? Not a chance. The staffing, resources, equipments, laboratories, infrastructure are not there. Our
health system which has systematically declined in recent years is quite honestly not going to manage this.
Join hands we must, united we must be. We will require partnerships of massive proportions, not just within the private sectors within our borders, but those well beyond too. It is accepted that over the years we had considerably reduced the number of TB infections in South Africa, but when, when were conditions were better than they are now? When there was a higher rate of unemployment and before medical centres began a steady decline, when clinics and hospitals were better resourced with less exhausted doctors and nurses, when people had the means to go to the clinic or a hospital and when medicines were available.
I fervently pray that the global conference will take these matters into account that we are able to be honest and transparent about our situation and not merely dream of plans and strategies. I think of this song; don't cry for me Argentina, written by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The words of which goes: Don't cry for me Argentina, The truth is I never left you, All through my wild days, My mad existence, I kept my promise, Don't keep your distance ...
I wonder what the hell they would have written if they were writing in the South African context right now. I think it would go like this: Please cry for those in South Africa, The truth is they just don't love you, You are poor and vulnerable, A sad existence, we've made you promises, we've got no hope of keeping. Let us tackle this, let us be systematic, let us plan, let us strategise but do not make promises you cannot keep. I thank you. [Applause.]