By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME February 25, 2020
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A scathing new report reveals that dozens of HIV-positive women were forced or coerced into sterilization after giving birth at public hospitals in South Africa.
The Commission for Gender Equality’s report this week says it investigated complaints by at least 48 women of “cruel, torturous or inhumane and degrading treatment” at the hospitals. At times it occurred when women were in labor.
In many cases, “the hospitals’ staff had threatened not to assist them in giving birth” if they didn’t sign the consent forms for sterilization, the report says. The commission is a statutory body that operates as an independent watchdog.
The forced sterilizations at 15 public hospitals in South Africa between 2002 and 2005 have sparked public outrage. Some of the hospitals are in some of the country’s largest cities such as Johannesburg and Durban.
“When I asked the nurse what the forms were for, the nurse responded by saying: ’You HIV people don’t ask questions when you make babies. Why are you asking questions now? You must be closed up because you HIV people like making babies and it just annoys us,” the report quotes one complainant as saying.
The commission said its investigation took time because of challenges including some hospital staffers who tried to hide documents or refused to cooperate.
It will refer its report to the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which has a mandate to act against health care practitioners.
The World Health Organization says South Africa has the largest HIV epidemic in the world with more than 7 million people living with the illness. Some 19% of the people around the world with HIV live in the country, which also has 15% of new infections.
The commission has recommended that further research be done into how widespread the practice of forced sterilization of women living with HIV might be in South Africa.
Study is halted as HIV vaccine fails test in South Africa
By The Associated Press February 3, 2020
FILE - In a Nov. 30, 2016 file photo, pharmacist Mary Chindanyika looks at documents on a fridge containing a trial vaccine against HIV on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. The latest attempt at an HIV vaccine has failed. Researchers announced Monday, Feb. 3, 2020 they've stopped giving the experimental shots in a major study in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest HIV rates. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam, File)
The latest attempt at an HIV vaccine has failed, as researchers announced Monday they have stopped giving the experimental shots in a major study.
The study had enrolled more than 5,400 people since 2016 in South Africa, a country with one of the world’s highest HIV rates. Last month, monitors checked how the study was going and found 129 HIV infections had occurred among the vaccine recipients compared with 123 among those given a dummy shot, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
“An HIV vaccine is essential to end the global pandemic and we hoped this vaccine candidate would work. Regrettably, it does not,” said NIH infectious diseases chief Dr. Anthony Fauci.
There were no safety concerns, but NIH, which sponsored the study, agreed that vaccinations should stop.
The experimental shot was based on the only vaccine ever shown to offer even modest protection against HIV, one that was deemed 31% effective in Thailand. That wasn’t good enough for real-world use but gave scientists a starting point. They beefed up the shot and adapted it to the HIV subtype that’s common in southern Africa.
Two other large studies, in several countries, are under way testing a different approach to a possible HIV vaccine.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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