Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - February 28, 1997
Jim Day
AIDS activists say Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma betrayed them with her ill- considered and premature support for the so-called wonder drug Virodene.
Reacting to the report this week by the University of Pretoria and Gauteng Health Department, they say the minister's failure to fully investigate Virodene before giving it her full public support amounted to a cruel trick, raising the hopes of millions of South Africans infected with HIV only to see them dashed.'
Asked for comment on the report, which lambasted the three University of Pretoria researchers for their "naivete" and poor methodology, Zuma's spokesman, Vincent Hlongwane, said the minister had not yet seen the report.
And yet, Aids activists say, it was Zuma who was so taken by Virodene that she directed the researchers to seek funding directly from the Cabinet without having her department investigate the matter further. In the face of growing concern - including the revelation that the only active ingredient of Virodene was an industrial solvent - Zuma continued to support the researchers, something Aids activists find inexplicable.
Some have gone so far as to equate it to the Sarafina II debacle, in which Zuma used R11-million of European Community money to pay for a musical.
"She's shirking her responsibilities,'' says Kevin Osborne of the National Association of People Living with HIV and Aids. "We are angry, and there are others out there who are very, very angry. She's the one who started it, but she doesn't have to deal with the repercussions."
The Virodene researchers say they will continue their research."Nothing will stop it from going forward," read a statement released by Cryo-Preservation Technologies, the researchers' company which holds the patent to Virodene. The group says a "top pharmaceutical research concern" will handle the next clinical trial.
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