DURBAN, Aug 4 (AFP) - Scientists, businessmen and community leaders were to discuss ways to defeat AIDS at a South African conference Monday, but bickering between politicians and activists urging easier access to anti-AIDS drugs is threatening to overshadow the event.
The four-day symposium in the east coast city of Durban had a rowdy opening ceremony with members of the audience taunting South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang with comments like "shame on you" and "AIDS treatment now" as she addressed the delegates.
The government has come under heavy criticism for failing to roll out a national treatment plan for AIDS sufferers, choosing instead to focus on "nutritious diets" as a way to fight the disease for those infected.
Simultaneously, South Africa's Medicines Control Council is threatening to ban the antiretroviral drug nevirapine, expressing doubts over its safety -- despite the fact that UN agencies and the World Health Organisation endorse the medicine.
Organisers of the conference, sponsored by South African campaigners and business leaders, are hoping the government and activists will settle their differences for the remaining three days and find common ground on how to prevent the spread of the disease.
Conference chairman Jerry Coovadia said lessons learnt at the conference would be important for the rest of Africa, the continent most affected by AIDS.
"It is time to stop, take stock and talk to each other. From this meeting we hope to develop a cohesive idea of where we are in fighting the epidemic," Coovadia 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.
South Africa has one of the highest AIDS rates in the world with UNAIDS estimating 360,000 deaths in 2001 -- an average of 986 per day.
Tshabalala-Msimang, who faces a looming legal battle with an AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), for failing to implement a national treatment plan for all AIDS sufferers, has defended the state's policies, dismissing the criticism as unfair.
"Irresponsible statements like that the South African government is committing genocide by not providing antiretorviral drugs is politically dangerous," Tshabalala-Msimang said at the opening.
"We must engage each other to find solutions to this problem but not to play political games on such a sensitive and emotional subject."
An AIDS specialist at South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Olive Shisana, said that by 2010, South Africa's gross domestic product would be 17 percent lower because of AIDS.
According to the 2002 Nelson Mandela HSRC study of HIV/AIDS, an estimated three percent of South African households were headed by children.
"The problem being the worst in urban informal settlements, where HIV was found to be most prevalent," Shisana said.
Stephen Lewis, the UN's special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, said other countries could learn from Uganda, which has had great success in countering AIDS.
"The country is obsessed with treatment and is pursuing it single-mindedly," Lewis said.
South Africa, however, is questioning the accuracy of a Ugandan study stating that the antiretroviral drug, nevirapine, drastically reduces mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Lewis said Uganda was treating 17,000 people through its Joint Clinical Research Centre, with a target of 60,000 by the end of next year, making it the largest public sector AIDS programme on the continent.
"They are not crowded by human resource capacity. They are quite simply determined to keep their people alive," Lewis said.
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