Put money where your mouth is, minister Motsoaledi

HEALTH Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi's tough line against the US should be backed by  a concrete plan that will secure funding to fill the gap that has been left by the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw aid funding for critical TB and HIV/Aids programmes. 

Other than his remarks that South Africa refuses to be reduced to beggars by the US, the government has yet to outline how it will respond to the warnings that years of research in TB and HIV/AIDS are on the brink of collapse. 

This past week, global news agency Reuters reported a concerning decline in viral load testing — a crucial measure that determines the amount of HIV virus present in the bloodstream of patients undergoing antiretroviral treatment.  

The staggering 21% drop in testing rates among key demographics over the past two months was directly linked to the loss of US funding.

For the first time an analysis by Treatment Action Group and Doctors Without Borders confirmed that 39 TB and HIV clinical research sites in the country are under threat due to funding cuts by the US, placing at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials at risk.

 The  reports should ring the alarm for the government to move with urgency to address  an imminent crisis that will reverse years of commendable strides in the fight against TB and HIV/AIDS.  

To say that South Africa won’t beg Trump to reinstate the funding that the US withdrew without a plan of where this money will come from is blowing hot air. 

Instead Motsoaledi should, if he has not already done so, lobby his finance counterpart Enoch Godongwana to pump more money on health. In his last two budget speeches, Godongwana made no mention of how South Africa intends to respond to the withdrawal of US funding. That could be the reason no funder has come forward to help the country out of this dark hole. 

If we as a country are not prepared to take the pain, who will risk doing so on our behalf? Certainly not Trump.