Mpumalanga silent on 21 000 missing HIV patients

The Mpumalanga department of health seems uninterested in addressing the problem of about 21 000 HIV/Aids patients who were on treatment disappearing without a trace.

During a recent interview with SABC News, health MEC Sasekani Manzini conceded that some patients were missing and said she was optimistic the newly launched HIV campaign “will help trace people who defaulted on their HIV treatment.

“In this number of 21 000 are those people who have taken treatment before and defaulted and those who have never taken treatment.”

About 21 000 HIV patients disappeared from treatment system

Surprisingly, yesterday, Mpumalanga department of health spokesperson Dumisani Malamule said: “The department is not aware of any 21 000 HIV/Aids patients that have disappeared from our database.

“The MEC launched a campaign on 16 May, 2025, in collaboration with the Mpumalanga Provincial Aids Council (MPAC) and other stakeholders in the health sector as part of the province`s ongoing interventions to enhance uptake of life-saving HIV treatment to ensure 95% of people diagnosed with HIV receive and adhere to antiretroviral therapy (ART) to achieve viral suppression.”

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“The HIV treatment campaign objective is to close the gap by putting an additional 1.1 million people nationally, while Mpumalanga’s target is 134 000, who are living with HIV but are not on treatment by the end of December. All our quality HIV/ Aids treatment care services are continuing very well,” said Malamule.

Last year, MPAC chair Sonto Nkosi conceded that the province was facing a problem of patients disappearing. She called on government to locate them and offer the necessary support.

DA spokesperson on health in Mpumalanga Bosman Grobler said the party welcomed the fact that the department launched a provincial campaign to get an extra 150 000 people on ARV treatment, but expressed concern about the 21 000 people who are missing.

Concern over missing patients

He said they would be encouraging people to be on treatment and those who had stopped must also be located.

“We are concerned about the 21 000 Mpumalanga ARV patients that have vanished from the system. This is troubling because the viral load of these patients will increase and it will be easy for them to infect their partners with the virus.”

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“The DA believes that if these patients are not found as soon as possible, it might reflect negatively on the province’s viral load and derail the action of getting more people on ARV treatment. At present, Mpumalanga has the second-highest HIV viral load in South Africa.”

Grobler urged the department to conduct door-to-door and radio campaigns to teach about adhering to ARV treatment.

He said the department must try by all means necessary to get the 21 000 missing patients to come back to their facilities so that they can get their treatment.

Mpumalanga has highest HIV prevalence of all provinces

According to the South African HIV Prevalence, Incidence and Behaviour Survey released in 2024, Mpumalanga has the highest HIV prevalence of all provinces (17.4%), meaning that the province has 890 000 people living with HIV.

The Mpumalanga department of health has reported that of the 890 000 HIV-positive people in the province, 630 000 are currently on ARV treatment.

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Statistics show that South Africa has 7.8 million people living with HIV/Aids and at least 5.9 million are on ARV treatment.