What are we going to do?

My god, 1 million aids orphans in South Africa by next year. 7 years ago in 1998 I remember being told this stat by a South African social worker when I was chauffering a United Nations delegation out to Shongweni. She told me that at our current rate of infection SA would have a million Aids orphans by 2005. How right she turned out to be and I now feel vindicated having quoted her soundbite countless times when assuaging other peoples optimism about SA’s burgeoning economy. What people don’t realize is the enormous financial impact not to mention moral burden this will have on South Africa.

If we assume that most of these children have HIV/Aids themselves then we can also assume that they will never live to reach a productive stage of their lives. These children will still have to be housed, fed, educated etc. but they will never get to an age where they are able to contribute to the country economically or socially.

So while 800 people die every day in South Africa…………..pause to let that sink in………………..our Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, continues to insist that it is better to eat spinach than administer Anti-Retrovirals. What a joke. How long will it take the masses in our country to realise the synonym for “The ANC’s Aids Policy” is actually “GENOCIDE.”

SA could have a million Aids orphans in 2006

September 25 2005 at 03:29AM

By Mark Carrels

An estimated one million South African children will have been orphaned by Aids by next year, and in the Eastern Cape the number of orphans has increased by 65 percent in the past year. At least 800 people are believed to die of Aids every day in South Africa.

The startling projections have prompted the Eastern Cape government to increase funding for orphaned and “vulnerable” children by almost 200 percent, from R7,8-million last year to R21,5-million this year.

Although the government does not keep specific statistics for Aids orphans, Nelson Mandela Bay Aids volunteers say the number of orphans in the metro has become “a worrying trend”. They say it will soon reach a stage where there are “more Aids orphans than there are people to look after them”.

‘Most of the adults who are dying at a terrific rate are in their 20s’
Provincial social development spokesperson Gcobani Maswana said 66 000 orphans were receiving foster care grants in the Eastern Cape. A further 29 048 orphans were on the department’s database, but not yet receiving grants. Of those, 12 000 needed to be placed in foster care and 17 000 had applied for grants which had not yet been processed.

There are 280 000 orphans receiving grants countrywide.

Maswana said a campaign undertaken by 27 non-government organisations in East London’s Duncan Village in February last year had identified 1 000 Aids orphans in just one week. “Many of these were in child- headed households,” he said.

Provincial social development chief director Sakhumzi Yawa said R21,5-million had been allocated to Aids orphans and “vulnerable children” for the 2004/2005 financial year. This was a considerable increase on the previous year’s figure of R7,8-million.

Former state doctor and medical activist Costa Gazi said at least 800 people died of Aids every day in South Africa. The Aids orphan problem could be attributed to the fact that people who had become HIV-positive a few years ago when the pandemic was at its highest level had now developed full-blown Aids.

He said more and more young adults were dying of Aids “and when the mother and father are positive, they eventually will die and the children are left without parents”. “Experts estimate that by next year about a million children in South Africa will be left orphaned by Aids.”

The House of Resurrection Aids Haven in Port Elizabeth, which provides hospice care and wellness management for people living with Aids, recorded 105 deaths last year, 101 of them adults.
Manager Maggie Williams said 95 percent of the adults who died left children behind.

So far this year the haven has recorded 91 deaths, 27 of which were children. “Most of the adults who are dying at a terrific rate are in their 20s,” said Williams.

She said 70 percent of those who had died at the haven this year were women.