TAC: Many challenges still facing people living with HIV
The Treatment Action Campaign says people living with HIV still face acute stigma and prejudice in society today.
This while service delivery also remains an ongoing issue.
"South Africans, we're committed to the year aids target of 1990. We are not reaching them because of the challenges we are facing on the ground," says TAC chairperson Sbongile Tshabalala.
"The issue of long queues in clinics, the infrastructure that is not up to standard. The shortage of human resources, the attitude of nurses and the stigma and discrimination that we continue to experience when we go to facilities because of our status when we go to the facilities.
"We know we have to queue in the other line because we are HIV. Those are the issues that are still worrying us today."
Tshabalala has been speaking about the challenges facing people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS as we mark World Aids Day.
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She says the risk of Covid-19 death is higher for those living with HIV than people who don't have the immunodeficiency virus.
"We realised that people who are living with HIV but up to today we don't have enough data to say how many people who are living with HIV and died of Covid.
"But what we got recently is that people who are living with HIV and not on treatment are more at risk of being infected with Covid-19 and also not surviving the pandemic."
