Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Mail & Guardian Online - May 2, 2007
That was just the start of the stabs he took at South African politicians over their role in the country's HIV/Aids crisis, during his keynote address this week to the 19th World Congress on Fertility and Sterility, held at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Conference Centre in Durban.
Uys had delegates from around the world laughing, then deathly silent, as they took in the scope of the threat of the pandemic to South Africa. While the developed world is burying lambs and cows to avoid disease, South Africa is burying its babies.
"South Africa is losing 1 000 people every day. While you're sitting in this conference [this week] we will have had four 9/11 situations in our country," Uys warned.
Hitting out at the government, he said South Africa has developed-world politics and a developing-world society, in which the rich can access antiretrovirals to keep them alive while the poor simply die.
"We have to find a way to communicate to each other that there is life beyond HIV. It is a life sentence, but it is not a death sentence," he said.
His impersonations of former president PW Botha, national icon Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu had delegates laughing aloud, but the so-called "national treasure" that Uys has become never let the ball drop for a second in the bid to get his HIV message across.
Calling apartheid the first virus and HIV the second to afflict South Africa, Uys revealed that he has visited 700 schools and talked to more than one million pupils in the past six years in his personal bid to do as much talking, as openly as possible, about the virus.
He said apartheid flourished for 40 years because everyone lived in fear, and suggested that open communication is the only way to ensure South Africa is not paralysed by similar fear in respect of HIV/Aids. "The more we talk, the less space we leave for rumours, urban legends and lies."
He was critical of "sexy" advertising for everything from lawnmowers to motor cars, warning against consequent surprise when youngsters respond accordingly.
The government took another knock from Uys who had everyone laughing when he warned that "governments only help themselves" and "that's why they're politicians and not people".
But he said he was heartened at his experience in communities, watching everyone from grandmothers and children to district nurses, teachers and doctors "helping ourselves".
South Africa needs its own Princess Dianas and Elizabeth Taylors to stand up and speak out. "We need our sportsmen, our singers, our actors to stand up and let everyone know that HIV is still lethal and it can still kill you. It's far worse than we know, and politics is eating us up because everyone focuses on politics and forgets the people," Uys said.
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