Tuesday, 30 November 2010

AVAILABILITY OF AIDS SERVICES LOW IN SA


More than seven out of ten people in Limpopo consider HIV and AIDS services in the province to be available and good but less than five out of ten people share this view in KwaZulu-Natal, African democracy institute Idasa report has revealed.
According to senior researcher in the Budget Unit of Idasa’s Governance and AIDS Programme (GAP) Godknows Giya, the proportion of citizens who said that HIV AND AIDS-related services in their provinces were available and generally good was relatively low.
In an opinion survey conducted in different municipalities in four provinces by African democracy institute Idasa, perceptions of availability and accessibility of HIV and AIDS services vary significantly from province to province.
“An average of 56.8% of respondents across the four provinces said HIV AND AIDS-related services in their provinces were available and good,” read the report in part. “However, 12.6% said that HIV AND AIDS-related services were available but not good, 7.8% said that services were available but not accessible to all, while 4.3% said that HIV AND AIDS-related services were not available. A total of 8.1% of respondents said that they didn’t know whether or not HIV and AIDS-related services were available in their wards at all.”
 According to the report, worst off are citizens in rural and informal areas, where 8.1% and 6.6% of citizens respectively said that HIV AND AIDS-related services were not available at all, compared to the 62.4% and 64.3% of citizens in tribal and urban areas respectively who said that HIV and AIDS-related services were available and good in their areas.
 “More than four in every ten KwaZulu-Natal citizens indicated that HIV and AIDS
interventions were available but of poor quality.  Over a third of KZN citizens indicated that antiretrovirals were not available in their province.,” read the report. “About one-fifth of citizens of Mpumalanga indicated that home-based care was not provided.  More than a third of the citizens of North-West province did not know whether HIV and AIDS
interventions were available in their province at all. Mpumalanga province has the highest proportion of citizens who said that HIV and AIDS- related services were available but not accessible. 6.5% of the citizens in North-West province said that HIV ND AIDS-related services were not available in their area, compared with 4.8% in Mpumalanga, 4.6% in KZN and 1.3% in Limpopo.”

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