So – arrive back at 6.30am yesterday morning from three extraordinary days in South Africa looking at AIDS projects. I was invited on this trip by a Labour MP, Sally Keeble, who has a long record of work and commitment to Africa and to International Development. Another Labour MP, David Borrow, was also on this trip – as he has been pursing the AIDS issue for some years. Sadly, the Conservative, Mark Lancaster, had to drop out at the last minute because of family illness.

The trip was put together by an umbrella organisation (relatively new) Business Action for Africa.

South Africa hosts a massive HIV positive and AIDS population – a pandemic – which is a pandemic mainly because nothing was done early enough to address it. In early years the South African government denied HIV, British and American governments viewed Africa as untreatable and so the disease sowed the seeds that today sees it with estimated numbers of six million infections.

Interestingly enough, businesses, such as the ones involved in this trip, are the ones who relatively early on began to address the devastating consequences of non-recognition and non-treatment – as they saw their workforces become sick and literally die. And in the end – when they did their sums, they realised that the cost of not addressing and treating AIDS was costing them far more than taking action would. (And I like to think some humanity also entered into their calculations!)

Out of this hard economic fact was born a real success story – in process. What firms like SABMiller and AngloAmerican are doing is trying to get their entire workforces to voluntarily come forward for testing for HIV and counselling. If an employee turns out to be positive – then the message is that the employee will be treated, supported – free of charge – and looked after in the health support program.

The objective – apart from the six thousand lives that AngloAmerican alone have probably saved to date – is to get to a point where no one who is HIV negative becomes positive and no-one who is found to be HIV positive dies. And they are well on there way with upwards of 85% of employees coming forward for testing. There are still new infections occurring – but the rate is dropping. In the five years since the programs were started – a real sea-change is occurring.

I am going to break up different parts of my experiences in Africa and write several separate blog pieces – as I witnessed a huge amount and had many thoughts. The reason these businesses under Business Action for Africa had gotten involved and wanted us MPs there was to really look at how business and government could work together. Despite a dreadful start by the South African government in terms of denial of HIV, they have now recognised how serious the situation is and while we were there actually launched a National Strategic Proposal for tackling HIV and AIDS. But it will take huge political leadership and will to drive this through – and what I came away thinking was how, how, how to get the South African government to welcome a partnership with business, and non-government organisations and donors.

If HIV and AIDS is to be beaten to the point where it becomes a disease you live with, not die with – and if new infections are to be reduced and reduced and reduced – it will take all of them together to turn this pandemic around.

So – the picture you see here – is me outside one of the ‘dwellings’ – I couldn’t think of an appropriate name for what was a stinking, disgusting, not fit for human habitation. I had come into Alexandra – the shanty town dwelling for the poor black population which was situated cheek by jowl with the very wealthy white area of Sandton. I had come to visit AIDS patients courtesy of a good scheme called Friends for Life, and visited three people in particular.

The first person I visited was Pinky. I went up a filthy, mouldy stair to her flat. The front room where her mother sat was covered in smears from her glue-sniffing son. It was sordid and filthy – but her mother who was sitting on a chair welcomed me. I (and the others) walked into the second tiny room where on a bed lay a stick thin figure. This was Pinky. She looked 80 years old but was, in fact, only 35. She had been found by the program when quite ill already. I will go into the ins and outs of AIDS treatment in another posting – but suffice to say that there is an optimum period to start treatment – and this had passed long ago for Pinky.

She sat up to greet us and told us that the main thing bothering her now was the pain in her feet. One of the dreadful side affects of the drug she was being treated with – was this terrible pain. But they wouldn’t change the drugs. There are alternatives – but this is the cheaper drug – so those who get it just have to put up with the pain. Pinky had been on treatment for three months and despite looking at death’s door was recovering and probably will return to normal – and then live with AIDS. She has to be taken to the clinic every day so they can check her and watch her taking her medication. That is the great challenge – as medication missed sees the viral load rocket and then resistance to the drugs can set in. At Pinky’s stage of illness – keeping even one tablet down is almost more than she can manage. But – she is being treated. And she will, all things being even, recover – however bad she looked.

The second dwelling – the one pictured – was worse than Pinky’s flat. As we went in, we had to duck as bits of metal protruded from the crude metal sheet ceiling. This was one tiny room with a bucket for faeces and urine. You can see from the picture how bad this was – but what you can’t do is feel the rain that comes in from a tin roof with holes and rains on the huddled figure on the putrid bed. Neither can you smell the stench from fouling.

The chap living here was youngish and disabled (so permanently on the bed). He was sitting up. He had mental problems the nurses who took me there said. Apparently he had a mother who came once a week to collect his ‘grant’ and took the money away – and all they left him with for sustenance was a few cans and a packet of crisps – yes – for the week. I have never seen anything this pitiful.

Talking to Jenni Gillies (SABMiller) – and Jenny is one hell of a woman – later on in our trip – she told me that she personally was just going to get his roof fixed because it was inhuman and it could be done – just like that. Of course – that’s not an answer to the raging inequality and racial divide – but it is humane on an individual scale.

The man did not have AIDS – but they thought we should see him to bear witness to the appalling nature of the reality many are living with.

Coming out of that stinking, hell hole, I said to one of the people taking us around how uncomfortable it felt to walk into someone’s private life and gawk at the him and his terrible state. She said to me that that was just my western projection. Just because I would feel like that if someone came to observe me because of my appalling state – in fact the people we visited were proud they they were being visited because it symbolised to them that they were not forgotten and abandoned, that the world out there was watching and that perhaps good would come of it. I bloody well hope so.

The last visit was to another man living with AIDS. His dwelling was much better. Whilst not that different looking from the outside – on entering it was reasonably appointed, clean and there was electricity and a television. He was recovering since being put on the treatment – but he too complained of the searing pain in this feet.

A recurring theme of the visit was that the solutions to the problems were there – but they were not being pursued. There is effective treatment for AIDS.
T
here are alternative pills that won’t give such terrible side effects.

There is also a new pill, which has been licensed in America but which still awaits South African licensing – which will only require one pill a day to provide all the combined medication needed. And given that it is the remembering to take all the different pills and the pain and difficulty of swallowing pills that often leads to patients giving up their medication – you would think the government would get a shifty on and license the new all in one pill. The frustration, recurring and recurring, was that there were answers just waiting for someone to grab hold of them.

So – that’s just a very short intro to some of what I experienced. Believe me – that’s just a tiny snapshot of a few hours in Alexandra, Johannesburg.

Some of the photos from my visit are now up on Flickr.