Tebogo Tladi
 
Leading this year's World AIDS Day commemorations in Duduza, Ekurhuleni yesterday, Gauteng Premier David Makhura made it public that the coronavirus outbreak had severely affected the province's fight against HIV/AIDS.
''With the advent of COVID-19, there was a major disruption in our progress largely as a result of the shift of all health resources and health services to focus on the pandemic,'' Premier Makhura said. 
"In the last year and a half, the province recorded a significant drop in the numbers of patients who were on antiretroviral therapy.  The relapses are owed to many COVID related reasons such as national lockdowns, that made accessibility to treatment challenging whilst some avoided healthcare facilities completely, out of fear of risking infection amongst many other explanations,'' he stated.  
Reporting on the province's progress report against UNAIDS' 90-90-90 target which called for 90% of all people living with HIV to know their HIV status; 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection to receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy to have viral suppression by last year, Gauteng Health MEC Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi said that amid the COVID-19 challenges, the Department managed to address set targets. 
"HIV testing is at 90%, ART Initiations is 74%, and Viral Suppression is at 89%. We have managed to achieve these numbers in worst times of Covid-19, and this means we at a better position now, since a number of people are getting vaccinated.  We can now focus our full attention into addressing the HIV/Aids programme and make significant improvement beyond what we managed to achieve,'' she asserted.
Premier Makhura resonated the MEC's declaration and appealed for more progressive multidisciplinary approach amongst government together with private corporations, community front-runners, religious leaders and citizens, more importantly, to collectively fight the intersection scourge of COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS.
The Premier furthermore established that recent stats revealed that the majority of patients in critical care at health institutions are unvaccinated citizens.
''I cannot emphasize this enough, especially to the young people of our province, but let's get vaccinated against COVID-19 as it remains one sure way to protect ourselves and our loved ones.  And more importantly it is our fighting chance to end the pandemic so we can redeploy all our efforts to other health matters like HIV/AIDS,'' concluded Premier Makhura.