While it may not be at the forefront of the conversation, a concentrated effort to stem HIV and Aids is continuing to make inroads in the province but it requires residents to religiously take their treatment.
This is according to speakers who addressed about 1,000 people at the World Aids Day commemorations held at the Lillian Ngoyi Community Sports Centre in Kwazakhele on Monday.
Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe welcomed department heads, councillors and community members at the event.
Those present included Eastern Cape health MEC Ntandokazi Capa and sport, recreation, arts and culture MEC Sibulele Ngongo.
Eastern Cape Aids Council co-chair Melikhaya Lusiti said people living with HIV had to be committed to taking their treatment.
“We encourage people who had stopped taking the medication to come back, the government has a programme called the ‘Welcome Back Campaign’.
“Our nurses fortunately have been trained, we used to cry to the MEC [Capa], because people would say they were shouted at by the nurses and they do not want to even fetch their treatment anymore,” Lusiti said.
Capa said they had gathered to confront the HIV and TB epidemics with courage, unity and unwavering resolve.
She said 2025 World Aids Day focused on two key campaigns.
One campaign seeks to identify and support the 1.1-million people living with HIV who know their status but are not yet on treatment.
And the five-million end tuberculosis campaign aims to test five-million people for TB in one year.
While there are high rates of testing and treatment access, the province has not yet reached the UN Aids 95-95-95 target.
It has three main components: 95% of people living with HIV to know their status, 95% of those diagnosed to receive sustained antiretroviral therapy (ART) along with 95% of those on ART achieving viral suppression.
Capa said provincial data showed that in June 2025, the results for adults were 94-78-93, and for children under 15, 88-75-77.
According to the 1.1-million close the ART Gap campaign to achieve the target, the province needed to find and initiate 148,322 people for ART.
In the district split, Nelson Mandela Bay has the highest number of people to initiate on the ART in the province at 34,842, followed by OR Tambo with 29,670 and Buffalo City with 21,765.
“For TB, the province must find and test 847,995 people. Of this, NMB has the second highest number to test at 153,643 after OR Tambo at 156,691.
“In view of this data, NMB has been identified as the provincial platform to host this year’s World Aids Day.
“These figures highlight the significant challenges the district faces in achieving the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets.
“Hosting the main event here sends a powerful message that we are fully committed to closing the treatment gap, intensifying interventions and accelerating progress toward ensuring that everyone living with HIV and TB has access to life-saving care,” Capa said.
Ngongo encouraged community members to live healthy, active lives.
“We say that you cannot walk this journey alone, because a healthy body is a body that is exercising, you cannot take treatment and sit down.
“Wake up in the morning to go run, if there were more people in a queue to run in the morning, there would be fewer queues at the clinic.
“It is difficult for the body to fall sick when you exercise, because your immune system is stronger,” Ngongo said.
The Herald
