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Author: Herman Pieters

WORLD AIDS DAY – 1 December 2019

1 December 2019 was WORLD AIDS DAY

This year, World AIDS Day is themed “Communities make the difference”

Communities contribute to the AIDS response in many different ways. Their leadership and advocacy ensure that the response remains relevant and grounded, keeping people at the centre and leaving no one behind. Communities include peer educators, networks of people living with or affected by HIV, such as gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and sex workers, women and young people, councilors, community health workers, door-to-door service providers, civil society organizations and grass-roots activists.

Some stark statistics

  • Globally, there are an estimated 36.7 million people living with HIV.
  • More than 35 million people have died of HIV or AIDS, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history.
  • The total number of people living with HIV is estimated at approximately 7,97 million in 2019.

 Frequent assumptions and questions

HIV is NOT AIDS
It’s important to remember that HIV and AIDS are not the same thing. When someone is described as living with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), they have the HIV virus in their body. A person is considered to have developed AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) when the immune system is so weak it can no longer fight off a range of infections with which it would normally cope.

True or false: You can get HIV from a mosquito bite?
Answer: False

It is physically impossible for a mosquito (or any other insect which bites mammals) to transmit HIV. Firstly, the HIV virus can’t survive in or on an insect. Secondly, these insects only suck blood up, they do not inject blood back in.

HIV can be transmitted by two of the following routes.

a) Sharing needles or syringes / YES

b) Kissing someone / NO

c) Sex without a condom with someone who has HIV but has an undetectable viral load / NO

d) Spitting / NO

True or false: Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, can prevent HIV transmission even when a condom isn’t used.

Answer: True.

If used correctly, PrEP is effective against preventing HIV. However, it does not prevent against other STIs or pregnancy. More info: A person can take Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP, to prevent themselves from acquiring HIV. PrEP is a medication which is highly effective at preventing HIV transmission, when used as directed.

What are the benefits of HIV treatment?

a) It prevents sickness and gives you a normal life expectancy

b) It suppresses the virus so that you can’t pass it on

c) Both of the above

Answer: (c) Both of the above

More info: HIV treatment is extremely effective and an HIV positive person on treatment can now lead a full and active life and has a normal life expectancy. HIV treatment also has preventive benefits. It reduces the level of HIV in the body to what is clinically referred to as an ‘undetectable viral load’ (this normally takes around six months from starting treatment). If someone’s viral load is undetectable, that means that they cannot pass on HIV, even when having sex without condoms.

“Like” the UNAIDS Facebook page: https://buff.ly/2KbIZ3L
“Like” the UNAIDS South African Facebook page: https://buff.ly/34OggKd

Forms of gender-based violence

There are many different forms of violence, which you can read more about here. All these types of violence can be – and almost always are – gendered in nature, because of how gendered power inequalities are entrenched in our society.

GBV can be physical, sexual, emotional, financial or structural, and can be perpetrated by intimate partners, acquaintances, strangers and institutions. Most acts of interpersonal gender-based violence are committed by men against women, and the man perpetrating the violence is often known by the woman, such as a partner or family member [3].

Violence against women and girls (VAWG)

GBV is disproportionately directed against women and girls [4]. For this reason, you may find that some definitions use GBV and VAWG interchangeably, and in this article, we focus mainly on VAWG.

Violence against LGBTI people

However, it is possible for people of all genders to be subject to GBV. For example, GBV is often experienced by people who are seen as not conforming to their assigned gender roles, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or intersex people.

Intimate partner violence (IPV)

IPV is the most common form of GBV and includes physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and controlling behaviours by a current or former intimate partner or spouse, and can occur in heterosexual or same-sex couples [5].

Domestic violence (DV)

Domestic violence refers to violence which is carried out by partners or family members. As such, DV can include IPV, but also encompasses violence against children or other family members.

Sexual violence (SV)

Sexual violence is “any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work.” [6]

Indirect (structural) violence

Structural violence is “where violence is built into structures, appearing as unequal power relations and, consequently, as unequal opportunities.

Structural violence exists when certain groups, classes, genders or nationalities have privileged access to goods, resources and opportunities over others, and when this unequal advantage is built into the social, political and economic systems that govern their lives.”

Because of the ways in which this violence is built into systems, political and social change is needed over time to identify and address structural violence.

Civil society organisations across the country formed the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence campaign, demanding a fully-costed, evidence-based, multi-sectoral, inclusive and comprehensive NSP to end GBV. [Photo: Alexa Sedgwick, Sonke Gender Justice]

GBV in South Africa

Societies free of GBV do not exist, and South Africa is no exception [7].

Although accurate statistics are difficult to obtain for many reasons (including the fact that most incidents of GBV are not reported [10] ), it is evident South Africa has particularly high rates of GBV, including VAWG and violence against LGBT people.

Population-based surveys show very high levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) and non-partner sexual violence (SV) in particular, with IPV being the most common form of violence against women.

  • Whilst people of all genders perpetrate and experience intimate partner and or sexual violence, men are most often the perpetrators and women and children the victims [7].
  • More than half of all the women murdered (56%) in 2009 were killed by an intimate male partner [8].
  • Between 25% and 40% of South African women have experienced sexual and/or physical IPV in their lifetime [9, 10].
  • Just under 50% of women report having ever experienced emotional or economic abuse at the hands of their intimate partners in their lifetime [10].
  • Prevalence estimates of rape in South Africa range between 12% and 28% of women ever reporting being raped in their lifetime [10-12].
  • Between 28 and 37% of adult men report having raped a women [10, 13].
  • Non-partner SV is particularly common, but reporting to police is very low. One study found that one in 13 women in Gauteng had reported non-partner rape, and only one in 25  rapes had been reported to the police [10].
  • South Africa also faces a high prevalence of gang rape [14].
  • Most men who rape do so for the first time as teenagers and almost all men who ever rape do so by their mid-20s [15].
  • There is limited research into rape targeting women who have sex with women. One study across four Southern African countries, including South Africa, found that 31.1% of women reported having experienced forced sex [16].
  • Male victims of rape are another under-studied group. One survey in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape found that 9.6% of men reported having experienced sexual victimisation by another man [17].

Source: https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/gender-based-violence-in-south-africa

Gender Based Violence and Femicide Summit

Garden Route District Municipality in collaboration with the South African Police Service and the Western Cape Department of Community Safety, today and tomorrow, 25-26 November 2019, will host a Gender-Based Violence Summit at the Conville Community Centre in George.

The Summit includes government, civil society and other role-players in an effort to find solutions to the scourge of gender-based violence that plague communities. The summit also serves as a platform for victims to share experiences and find collective solutions to issues.

On the end of the two-day summit, participants develop a list of priority actions that will outline a roadmap to a Garden Route free from Gender-Based-Violence.

 

Smutsville and Sizamile Street Vendors receive training

Garden Route District Municipality’s (GRDM) Environmental Health Practitioners (EHPs) from Knysna, Mr Mtetho Sithonga and Ms Mendy Tyhawana, presented an information and awareness session on 13 November 2019 to Informal Food Traders – also known as street vendors. These traders currently run their businesses in the Smutsville/Sizamile areas.

According to the traders, they primarily see a spike in business over weekends when they sell braai meat in front of taverns and on street corners.

In view of the information and awareness sessions provided by EHPs, Mr Johan Compion, Manager: Municipal Health and Environmental Services, said: “Ongoing health and hygiene education sessions play an essential role in the practices of food traders”.  He also confirmed the following: “Improper food handling practices, inadequate temperature control and poor food storage practices, as well as improper cleaning of equipment and utensils, cause foodborne illnesses.”

During last week’s session, EHPs focused on the five keys to safer food, compliance issues and incentives for those adhering to food safety standards.

The keys to safer food deal primarily with:

  1. Keep clean (dealing mainly with hygiene practices);
  2. Separate raw from cooked food (deals mainly with how to handle and keep raw food and cooked food apart to prevent cross-contamination);
  3. Cook food  thoroughly (deals mainly with the technique of cooking to ensure all the microorganisms  that were in the food are killed);
  4. Keep food at safe temperatures (this key focus on safe temperatures of storing cooked or raw food and the importance of not breaking the cold chain and the consequences of not adhering to that); and
  5. Use safe water and raw materials (importance of knowing the source of the water you use is safe or not safe, if not, how do you ensure that the water is safe. The raw material you use e.g. meat products, vegetables, etc. are from credible sources meaning they are being checked and authorised to trade.)

Mr Mtetho Sithonga, EHP and one of the presenters of the session, said: “Food safety is about producing, handling, storing and preparing food in such a manner, which prevents infection and contamination of food”. It is especially important to have Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) for food in the big production chains as well. “In other words, food safety helps to promote good health by ensuring wholesomeness of food,” said Sithonga.

The crux of the matter is that education sessions promote the importance of public health. While awareness sessions remind food traders about the importance of a “health first” approach – so do inspections and enforcement. These mechanisms require synergy and ongoing collaboration between the public and private sectors to make things work to the standard it was intended to by law. Strict adherence to standards and best practices is required for every food trader because they are the final point of sale of foodstuffs.

If anyone becomes aware of any suspicious food trading activities, or would like to lodge an anonymous complaint, contact the GRDM Municipal Health Services Department at 044 – 803 1522 or send the details to info@gardenroute.gov.za

World Day of Remembrance exists to pay tribute to road traffic victims and their families, as well as to recognize the work of professionals who act after a road crash.

The type of road mobility that is in place throughout the world still fosters an unbearable number of deaths, serious injuries and illnesses every year, both as the immediate consequence of road traffic crashes and through air pollution.

Here are some scary statistics published by the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration:

– Each year nearly 1.3 million people die as a result of a road traffic collision— more than 3000 deaths each day

— More than half of these deaths are of people who are not even travelling in a car.

– 20 to 50 million people sustain non-fatal injuries from a collision, and these injuries are an important cause of disability worldwide.

– 99% of road traffic deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, which claim less than half the world’s registered vehicle fleet.

– Road traffic injuries are among the three leading causes of death for people between 5 and 44 years of age.

To read the “Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 – 2020, follow this link: https://buff.ly/32Ch2bV

World Day of Remembrance

#RoadSafety

#WDR

#wdor2019

Media Release: LED & SCM Indaba underway in Mossel Bay

Media Release: LED & SCM Indaba underway in Mossel Bay

For Immediate Release
20 July 2020

A two-day Local Economic Development (LED) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) Indaba is currently underway in Mossel Bay.

The theme of the Indaba is “Utilising procurement as a lever to enhance local economic development – Maximising citizens impact”

A myriad of topics will be discussed over the next two days, which include some of the following:

  • Public Procurement as it links the government’s development and strategic agenda and public financial management system with social, economic and environmental outcomes” (Western Cape: Economic Procurement Policy);
  • Context of supply chain management on the limitation hampering service delivery and the effects SCM has on local economic development;
  • How do we navigate economic opportunities in a rule driven environment to maximizing citizen impact;
  • The inclusion of the LED statement in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) that propels SCM to become a strategic enabler for economic development: Aligning IDP, SCM and LED”; and
  • Exploring creative mechanisms and/or solutions to address economic impact through procurement and deal with the economic challenges within various localities.

 

World Diabetes Day

Diabetes is a chronic, progressive disease but people with diabetes can live long, healthy lives with good diabetes management. This includes managing not only blood glucose (glycaemia) but also risk factors for complications such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. These can be managed with a healthy diet, regular physical activity and the correct use of medication as prescribed by a health provider. People with diabetes require access to regular and organised healthcare delivered by a team of skilled providers.

People with type 1 diabetes require daily insulin treatment, regular blood glucose monitoring and a healthy diet and lifestyle to manage their condition effectively to delay or avoid many of the complications associated with diabetes.

The cornerstone of type 2 diabetes management is a healthy diet, increased physical activity and maintaining a healthy body weight. Oral medication and insulin are also frequently prescribed to help control blood glucose levels.

A healthy diet for people with diabetes includes reducing the number of calories in people who are overweight, replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats, eating dietary fibre, and avoiding tobacco use, excessive alcohol and added sugar.

Physical activity is most effective when it includes a combination of both aerobic (eg. jogging, swimming, cycling) exercise and resistance training, as well as reducing the amount of time spent being inactive.

For people with type 1 diabetes, an uninterrupted supply of high-quality insulin is essential for survival. Unfortunately, this is not the case in many countries. Almost 100 years since insulin was first used to treat type 1 diabetes, many people with diabetes continue to have difficulty accessing affordable and regular insulin to manage their condition.

The full provision and availability of injection and monitoring equipment are even lower, and the cost of blood glucose supplies often exceeds the cost of insulin, especially in some of the poorest countries.

The primary aim of the World Diabetes Day (WDD) is to raise awareness of the impact that diabetes has on the family and to promote the role of the family in the management, care, prevention and education of the condition.

The WDD 2019 has three main focus areas (click on the links to learn more):

Discover diabetes
Prevent type 2 diabetes
Manage diabetes

Visit: https://worlddiabetesday.org/

When posting to social media about World Diabetes Day, use the hashtag #WorldDiabetesDay