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From the
February 2002 issue of
World Press Review
(VOL. 49, No. 2)
South
Africa
Mbeki's Tin Ear on Aids
Sarah
Coleman
World Press Review Contributing Editor
For World AIDS
Day on Dec. 1, the South African government promoted the slogan
“I care enough to act...do you?” But many South Africans
are growing increasingly unhappy with their government’s
position on AIDS, and especially with the attitude of President
Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki, who has drawn fire in the past by denying a connection
between the HIV virus and AIDS [See “Leadership
Crisis,” Regional Reports, July 2001] seems determined
to continue his hard-line approach. On Oct. 24, the president
publicly reiterated his belief that anti-retroviral drugs (ARV)
are dangerously toxic. This stance, which commands little support
within the medical community, has resulted in the government’s
refusal to increase the availability of nevirapine, an ARV that
is believed to cut mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 50
percent.
Mbeki referred his opponents to a report on the Web site of
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which highlighted
unforseen toxicities in ARVs. But he was quickly accused of
using the CDC report for political ends. Quoted in The Star
(Oct. 25), Dr. Kobus Gous, the Democratic Alliance’s spokesman
on AIDS, said, “It is very, very low, immoral, and hypocritical
to use science to make ARV drugs suspect.”
South Africa continues to have the world’s highest per-capita
incidence of AIDS, with an estimated 4.2 million people currently
infected with HIV. According to South Africa’s Department
of Health, nearly 1 million children will lose their mothers
to AIDS by 2005. “One could say without exaggeration that
the state’s failure to face the facts about AIDS at the
expense of human life is approaching criminal levels,”
wrote Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela in the Mail & Guardian
(Nov. 30). “One gets the feeling that there is an overwhelming
sense of paralysis at government level.”
As the controversy swells, Mbeki and his allies are becoming
increasingly isolated. On Nov. 17, a parliamentary joint monitoring
committee dominated by female African National Congress (ANC)
MPs called for the widespread provision of ARVs to pregnant
women with HIV. And on Nov. 26, the Treatment Action Campaign
took the government to court in Pretoria to demand implementation
of a mother-to-child transmission prevention program.
On Dec. 2, the ANC National Executive Committee issued a statement
acknowledging a causal link between HIV and AIDS but defended
its position on nevirapine. “The ANC is committed to treatment
programs which are responsible, effective, and sustainable,”
the statement said. Such tepid words are unlikely to impress
doctors in the forefront of the crisis. “We’ve been
messing around too long,” wrote leading immunologist Ruben
Sher in the Sunday Times (Nov. 25). “Everyone who
needs anti-retroviral treatment should get it, not only because
it will improve quality of life and affect the economy but because
it can...break the backbone of this epidemic.” On Dec.
16, in a humiliating defeat for the government, a High Court
judge ordered immediate distribution of nevira-pine to HIV-positive
women who give birth in public hospitals. The government said
it would appeal. 
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