By Nangamso Mabindla

Although everyone in South Africa knew about HIV/Aids, many chose to ignore the consequences of not taking control of their lives against the killer disease, said Nozipho Balfour, systems director from the Eastern Cape Department of Health at an event held to mark World Aids Day yesterday.

Mrs Balfour told the 100-strong crowd at the Billy Francis Community Hall in Gompo Township, north east of East London, to take the disease seriously. "This enemy has been killing us for the past 20 years and attempts to educate people about this killer have, up to this stage, been futile."

People still believed Aids was an attempt to scare them, Mrs Balfour said. Some people were deceived by the symptoms. "When a person stands in front of others and declares they are HIV-positive, you hear comments such as, 'But she looks healthy', or 'She's trying to scare men away'. These comments are dangerous," Mrs Balfour warned.

She said the government was not responsible for people's lives, rather people needed to exercise self-control. "People can live without sex. Living without sex has never killed anyone. Do we as communities want our children to live in conditions where Aids reigns supreme?"

By attending the event, the Gompo community showed it was serious about fighting the scourge of Aids, Mrs Balfour said, adding she was pleased that the children from the Breaking Barriers Christian group were present.

"I think we should use children to convey the message. Aids is killing our youth, so instead of using politicians and other celebrities, we need to use children so that communities embrace the message," she said.

The Breaking Barriers Christian group entertained the crowd, spreading the message to abstain from sexual relations outside marriage and showing the importance of fighting Aids.

Communities should not make poverty an excuse for living immoral lives, Mrs Balfour said. People often believed engaging in immoral lives would take away the misery of poverty, she said. "That is where people are wrong, that kind of life only makes things worse. A person spreads the disease. Then there's the problem of teenage pregnancies. It's getting worse people; let us heed the counsel from sex educators."

The future was as bleak as it looked, she said, unless strong action was taken to combat HIV/Aids. While Mrs Balfour said her department would do its best to remove Aids into "oblivion", the struggle had to be a joint onslaught by both government and members of the communities.