LILONGWE, Oct 31, 2006 (AFP) - South Africa's response to AIDS has undergone a sea change since the sidelining of its controversial health minister, according to the United Nations' top envoy for the pandemic in Africa.
Stephen Lewis, who slammed South Africa's "obtuse, dilatory and negligent" response to AIDS in a speech earlier this year, told AFP in an interview that the government in Pretoria now appeared to have got its act together.
"There is a very major change in government policy on AIDS ... Things have dramatically changed in the last five weeks," he said in Malawi, where he is on a tour to assess local AIDS programmes.
"It's very interesting what is happening in South Africa ... Suddenly the government made public statements that it's going to start rolling out treatment more vigorously and want to work with people rather than have confrontation."
Around 5.5 million of South Afria's population of 47 million are infected with HIV, the second highest rate in the world after India.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has attracted widespread derision for championing beetroot and garlic to combat the disease, with the country's main AIDS lobby, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), demanding her dismissal.
Even before her recent admission to hospital for a lung infection, President Thabo Mbeki had made his deputy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka head of a ministerial team on HIV/AIDS and deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge had increasingly taken on the task of enunciating government policy.
At a recent AIDS workshop, co-hosted by the TAC, Madlala-Routledge struck a markedly conciliatory line by telling delegates that the deputy president had been "tasked" to "unite all of us" for a "common, comprehensive programme.
"Government sees you as important partners, as leaders who helped us develop the National Strategic Framework for HIV and AIDS," she said. "We are all in pain ... We are losing our children and youth, our future."
The TAC has long been a virulent critic of the health minister over the government's perceived failure to speed up the rollout of free anti-retrovirals but it now appears to have buried the hatchet.
Lewis avoided any direct mention of Tshabalala-Msimang but said that since Mlambo-Ngcuka "had taken over (on AIDS issues) ... she is now the dominant force and dominant voice and those of us who are outside are watching this."
Lewis said the ministry of health "with its previous very controversial policies is no longer the central activity and the deputy president has really taken hold and it's quite interesting what is happening."
Tshabalala-Msimang, derisively dubbed "Dr Beetroot" by critics, came to loggerheads earlier this year with Lewis at the AIDS summit in Toronto, where the South African stall at an exhibition was festooned with garlic and the other vegetables she espouses as remedies.
Lewis then denounced what he called "theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state."
The government has repeatedly insisted that Tshabalala-Msimang had been misquoted and that she had merely been stressing that good nutrition was also vital in the fight against AIDS.
061031
AF061034
Copyright ©AFP 2006. All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission. obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Elton John AIDS Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, Bridgestone Firestone Trust Fund, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2006. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2006 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
