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HIV/Aids awareness ribbon
The Eastern Cape Department of Health has launched 2 door-to-door campaigns to encourage HIV positive patients to receive treatment.
This follows statistics that have shown that about 148 000 people living with HIV, who know their status, are not on treatment.
A Limpopo human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) activist says it’s important to break the stigma and promote equal access to treatment for people with HIV. pic.twitter.com/N9wTdBkrzk
— SABC News (@SABCNews) November 30, 2025
Provincial Health spokesperson, Camagwini Mavovana, says the recently launched campaigns focus on mass mobilisations, where healthcare workers visit communities in their homes and public spaces.
“Our biggest intervention has been the R1.1m close the art gap campaign. As a province, we need to find over 148 000 people who know they are HIV positive, but are not on treatment. We launched the campaign in October and already have mass mobilization across the province, door-to-door, village-to-village and workplace-to-workplace because the treatment gap is our single biggest risk. At the same time, we are delivering the R5m for the Tuberculosis test campaign,” says Mayoyana.
‘Break the stigma’
A Limpopo HIV activist says it’s important to break the stigma and promote equal access to treatment for people with HIV. Thovhowani Makondo, widely known as ‘Queen Beyonce’, from Ha-Khakhu village outside Louis Trichardt, has been living with HIV since 2014.
Makondo has gone public about his status to dispel stigmatisation. He says that his sexual orientation resulted in his family members distancing themselves from him. He is a member of the LGBTQI-plus community.
Makondo says resilience has shaped his journey. “My sexuality stigma affected me a lot. Where I come from, it’s a rural area, so they don’t understand LGBTQIA+. It was not easy for me, and they couldn’t accept me. Some people were saying I’m cursed, some saying I was bewitched, but I did not decide to be this way; I was born like this. The stigma around the community was very bad because I was judged, I was insulted and called names, it also affected me mentally, I even left school because of bullying.”
‘Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response’
South Africa once again stands at the forefront of the global fight against AIDS as we observe World AIDS Day on Monday. The nation, which carries the world’s largest burden of HIV, will commemorate the day under the theme: ‘Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response.’
This year’s focus is a call to action, urging renewed commitment to ending the epidemic as a public health threat. The latest figures underscore both the challenge and the progress: an estimated 8 million people are currently living with HIV in South Africa.
Crucially, the country’s massive antiretroviral treatment programme continues to be a global success story, with approximately 6.2 million people on life-saving treatment.
Deputy Director General for HIV & TB in South Africa Dr Nonhlanhla Ndlovu:
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