JOHANNESBURG, Nov 29, 2006 (AFP) - South Africa, ridiculed at home and abroad over its approach to the disease, will seek to silence its critics and paper over internal rifts with a major new strategy to combat AIDS.
The HIV and AIDS strategic plan for 2007-11 will be unveiled by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Vice-President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on Friday in a show of unity that belies deep divisions within government ranks.
Nconde Xundu, head of the health ministry's HIV/AIDS section said the plan to be launched on World Aids Day would steer clear of setting specific goals on supplying drugs for the 5.5 million South Africans affected by the disease but would include a target "for a reduced number of inceptions."
The government would also be looking to "increase coverage to around 80 percent (of the population) for care, treatment and support," she told AFP.
The new strategy has included input from a raft of non-governmental organisations, including harsh critics of the controversial Tshabalala-Msimang.
Dubbed Dr Beetroot in South Africa for advocating a diet of vegetables to help combat the disease, Tshabalala-Msimang has also come in for scathing criticism by Stephen Lewis, the United Nations' chief envoy on AIDS in Africa.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the main anti-AIDS lobby, has spent much of the year calling for her sacking over the rate of distribution of free anti-retrovirals which are now given to 213,828 sufferers.
But since the appointment of Mlambo-Ngcuka as head of a ministerial team on HIV/AIDS and emergence of deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge as the public face of government policy, the TAC campaign has been put on hold.
Tshabalala-Msimang's standing plunged to its nadir at an AIDS conference in Toronto in August when the South African government's stand featured displays of beetroot, garlic and lemon.
Lewis accused it of espousing "theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state."
In an interview with AFP, Madlala-Routledge admitted the government had been left red-faced in Toronto.
"We were embarrassed as a country because in the international media and South Africa there was much negative reporting around South Africa," she said.
"The concept that nutrition might be an alternative -- that was the impression that came across.
"We acknowledge the role of nutrition. We however do not regard nutrition as an alternative. That has been lost over time and much confusion exists in society."
Madlala-Routledge admitted the initial response to AIDS was too slow as efforts were concentrated on redressing imbalances of the apartheid era.
"With South Africans at all levels, there was some denial," she said.
"Perhaps our problem, that must be acknowledged, was that we had just become a free country."
But just when campaigners thought Tshabalala-Msimang, who has been suffering health problems, had been sidelined permanently, she rounded on her critics in a newsletter for the ruling ANC.
The flak in Toronto came from a group of plotters who sought "to portray our government as uncaring and indifferent to the plight of its own electorate."
And in apparent reference to Madlala-Routledge and Mlambo-Ngcuka, she said "my illness was portrayed as an opportunity to turn others into champions of a campaign to rid our government of the so-called 'HIV and AIDS denial'."
TAC spokesman Mark Heywood said his organisation had been taken aback by Tshabalala-Msimang's comments after mending bridges with Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Asked who was in charge, he replied: "That's a good question."
"Relations with the government remain difficult but the big difference is that there's an engagement, constructive engagement," he told AFP.
The TAC has indeed been involved in the consultations on the new AIDS strategy even if "serious shortcomings" had been identified in a draft version.
Heywood said calls for the minister to be sacked by President Thabo Mbeki, who has himself in the past questioned whether AIDS is caused by HIV, had been shelved.
"We are not actively demanding that she goes as we do not think that will help the position. We work in the real world," he said.
Madlala-Routledge has been careful to avoid criticising her superior but is aware of the danger of confusing the public.
"We see it as very important that we all communicate the same message," she said.
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