PARIS, Dec 9, 2006 (AFP) - UN Special Envoy Stephen Lewis says South Africa had made "a breakthrough" on AIDS after sidelining its controversial health minister and unveiling a new programme for helping people with HIV.
In an interview with AFP, Lewis -- one of the fiercest critics of South Africa's AIDS policies -- said he was encouraged by developments of recent weeks.
"I do think there has been a breakthrough, I don't think there's any question about that, although it may not be as extensive as we yet want," Lewis said by phone from Canada on Friday.
"South Africa has turned the corner and the minister of health is still on the side of the street," he said, adding pithily: "That's probably appropriate."
South Africa is second to India as the country with the highest number of HIV-infected people in the world.
Around 5.5 million people in a population of 47 million are living with HIV or AIDS.
President Thabo Mbeki and his ministers have been under withering fire for pronouncements that have doubted the clinical causes of AIDS, for delays in rolling out lifesaving antiretroviral drugs and for encouraging a diet claimed to be able to combat the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Lewis said he was encouraged by a new draft plan, unveiled by South Africa on World AIDS Day last December 1, aimed at halving the number of people infected with the AIDS virus within five years.
It also pledges to provide treatment, care and support to at least 80 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS and their families.
Lewis said it was "a little disquieting" that the treatment target for 2011 "is still much below what will be required by that time."
But he said he had no quarrel with the plan's effort to encourage young people to delay the onset of their sexual life in order to reduce the number of teen infections.
Encouraging abstinence in this way is "a very legitimate and useful proposition... to the extent that kids can be persuaded" to refrain from sex, said Lewis, emphasising also the need for safe-sex awareness and access to condoms for those who are sexually active.
Lewis added he was also "very much cheered" by the response of South Africa's grass-roots groups, such as the Treatment Action Campaign, who have reacted positively to the plan.
According to government figures for September, 213,000 infected people now benefit from a government-funded antiretroviral plan, and 11,000 more join each month. In addition, more than 360 million condoms are distributed annually.
The draft scheme makes no mention of the disputed diet espoused by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who contends that eating a mixture of garlic and vegetables can fight HIV.
Scientists say the diet is worthless, while campaigners say it may delude HIV-infected poor people into believing there is a quick, cheap fix for infection.
Lewis, whose five-year tenure as Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa winds up at the end of this month, is famous for his unvarnished speech.
He put South Africa to the sword at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto in August, blasting Pretoria for theories "more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state" and doubting whether its government could ever "achieve redemption."
Tshabalala-Msimang's lead role in South Africa's AIDS programme now appears to have been taken over by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, said Lewis.
"I don't think she's out of the picture. I think her role has been considerably diminished," said Lewis.
"The destructive nonsense surrounding garlic and lemon and sweet potatoes and beetroots and all that, which so confused South Africans, I think that is now on the back burner as it were.
"It's safely stowed away in a vegetable bin somewhere and is no longer available as an appetiser for AIDS response. The simple absurdity of it is no longer central, and that's all to the good."
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