Cape Town - Stakeholders involved in HIV and AIDS campaigns will on Thursday get an opportunity to tell Parliament and the Inter-Parliament Union (IPU) how to make HIV treatment more accessible.
The public hearings will be held as part of the IPU Advisory Group on HIV and AIDS's site visits to South Africa.
The visit is the second country site visit by the Advisory Group following last year's visit in Brazil.
The IPU advisory group is a small group of legislators who are leaders in their home parliaments on HIV and AIDS and related issues.
The body also provides guidance to the 147 national parliaments that are members of the IPU on the implementation of international commitments on HIV and AIDS.
During a site visit, the group will also visit KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces.
Henrietta Bogopane-Zulu, who is a member of the South African Parliament and the Advisory Group said it was important that the group listens to stakeholders talk about their role in ensuring that treatment for HIV was more accessible.
She said KwaZulu-Natal was specifically chosen because the province has the highest rate of HIV infections noting that it is also a province, which is on its way to finding a solution to the pandemic.
Stakeholders expected to make presentations at the hearings include the Department of Health, South African National Aids Council, University of Cape Town's Children's Institute, Men in Partnership against HIV and AIDS, People living with HIV and AIDS, Khomanani, law and human rights sector, South African National Editors Forum and traditional leaders.
According to a report from the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), released in July 2008, of the three million people put on anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment by 2007 worldwide, South Africa accounted for close to 429 000.
The report showed that the number of people on ARV treatment in South Africa increased from 55 000 in 2004 to 429 000 in the same year.
According to the UNAIDS report, close to 160 000 HIV positive people with Tuberculosis (TB) received TB and HIV treatment in 2007.
"The percentage of HIV positive women accessing ARV treatment to reduce the risk of mother to child transmission of HIV also increased from 15 percent in 2004 to about 60 percent in 2007," the report stated.
The report also revealed that South Africa was one of the three countries in southern Africa where the prevalence of HIV has stabilised.
The 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic stated that the prevalence of HIV in South Africa, Malawi and Zambia are decreasing.
The report also provides encouraging data on the trend of HIV and AIDS epidemic in South Africa and the African continent.
