DURBAN, August 3 (AFP) - A South African AIDS conference opened Sunday evening amid threats to sue the government for failing to provide anti-AIDS drugs that could save nearly 1,000 lives per day.
But Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang defended the state's AIDS policies at the opening of the four-day event in the east coast city of Durban, dismissing the criticism as unfair.
"Irresponsible statements like that the South African government is committing genocide by not providing antiretorviral drugs is politically dangerous. We should not play political games about such an emotional statement," she told about 4,000 delegates.
A heckler repeatedly interrupted her speech by shouting "shame on you" and "AIDS treatment now".
A leading South African judge, Justice Edwin Cameron of the Supreme Court of Appeal, told reporters before the start of the conference that the HIV/AIDS pandemic had been "compounded immeasurably" by the absence of a coherent and rational policy for AIDS treatment.
"What South Africa requires is a holistic and comprehensive policy that includes attention to all aspects of physical well-being -- naturally encompassing nutrition and overall health care, but also including the public provision of appropriate medications," he said.
South Africa has one of the highest AIDS rates in the world with 360,000 deaths in 2001 -- an average of 986 per day.
Earlier on Sunday a South African AIDS lobby group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), said it would sue the government for its failure to implement a national treatment plan for all AIDS sufferers.
"TAC will pursue litigation for a national treatment and prevention programme," TAC spokeswoman Siphokazi Mthathi told AFP.
Throughout Tshabalala-Msimang's speech at the opening, TAC members stood silently holding placards saying: "Two pills a day saves lives."
The TAC has for months been urging the government to announce the rollout of a national treatment plan to everyone infected with HIV/AIDS. The group argues that the expense of anti-AIDS drugs would be less than the long-term costs of dealing with the affects of the disease.
TAC chairman Zackie Achmat, a formidable AIDS activist, is currently refusing to take medication in protest of the government's lack of action -- despite reports that his HIV-positive condition is nearing full-blown AIDS.
The AIDS conference, which is being sponsored by South African campaigners and business leaders, is being attended by numerous international experts on AIDS. It is aimed at combining science and the community "to get a broader African perspective" on the disease, organisers said.
South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who was also disrupted by the heckler, told the delegates that "some people sometimes feel that the government is not caring for people that are infected with HIV and AIDS by not providing them with antiretroviral therapy".
"We are in the process of finalising several international agreements to ensure access to medication to the many people infected with HIV and AIDS," he said.
"The challenge lies in powerful and continuous action to prevent new infections and to provide care and support for the many who are infected or affected."
In a televised message, UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot told delegates the epidemic had added a new dimension to the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots".
"The rich who are living with HIV have access to antiretroviral treatment and the poor who are living with HIV do not," Piot said.
Of the world's 42 million people infected with HIV or full-blown AIDS, 29.4 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, which had 3.5 million new infections last year, and 2.4 million AIDS-related deaths.
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