AEGiS-IRIN: Regional Technical Advisor for HIV/AIDS: HIV/AIDS Report still to be released

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Regional Technical Advisor for HIV/AIDS: HIV/AIDS Report still to be released

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks - September 22, 2001

The South African Medical Research Council (MRC) announced that it would not release its report, which points to HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of deaths in the country, this week because it still has to hold a series of briefings and discussions with various role-players. This announcement followed a statement on Monday in which the council said it hoped to release the document, "The Impact HIV/AIDS has on Mortality in South Africa", this week.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, MRC president Dr Malegapuru Makgoba was unable to say when the report might be released. "The report will definitely not be released this week because I must first be satisfied with the process which it is going through once it is completed," Makgoba said.

"Given the significance of the findings, the MRC has decided to pursue the process of informing the policy-makers of our country through several discussion processes." He said the MRC had received useful and constructive feedback from various government agencies using different methodologies and approaches to analyse the same problem. "When these processes are completed the MRC will release the report. We have every confidence that our country's policy-makers will expedite this process in the interest of informing the public," he added.

Meanwhile religious, labour and AIDS groups gathered in Cape Town this week to challenge the government to "overcome the denial syndrome" of HIV/AIDS and called for the "immediate release" of the MRC report. The Anglican and Catholic churches, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the AIDS group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) met on Monday to draft a statement asking the government to "acknowledge the scale of the HIV/AIDS epidemic" in South Africa.

The group said that it has created a programme to help government officials and others overcome their "denial" of HIV/AIDS. The TAC has written to the health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, giving her one week to publish the report or else face legal action from the group.

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