Inter Press Service - June 28, 2001
Farah Khan

The Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu), a 1.8-mn strong federation, says it is disappointed by ongoing prevarication by the Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

At the UN special general assembly on HIV/AIDS this week, the Minister again questioned the effectiveness of a treatment programme of potentially life-saving AIDS drugs, called anti- retrovirals.

"Let us not shy away from the simple truth that much as we know a lot today there are many facets of both the HI virus and the syndrome of AIDS that need further elucidation," she said in New York.

Back home, her statements are interpreted as bringing still further delays in the implementation of a national treatment programme. While Botswana has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection in the world, South Africa has the fastest growing epidemic.

The latest studies suggest that between 10 per cent and 12 per cent of the population of 42 million is HIV-positive, most of them young women between the ages of 20 and 24 years old.

Cosatu and the AIDS lobby in South Africa had hoped that the April victory by the government against the pharmaceutical industry would bolster its efforts in prevention and treatment of what one non-governmental organisation (NGO) calls an "impending catastrophe".

Instead, the African National Congress (ANC) led government has continued to prevaricate. The court victory offered President Thabo Mbeki a political opportunity to establish an identity for himself and his government as anti-AIDS campaigner.

But, he has failed to seize the moment, clinging to an approach of intellectual distance. He failed this week to attend the UN assembly, despite the fact that most African heads of state attended and that he was in the US on a state visit.

Mbeki has the unfortunate reputation of siding with AIDS dissenters or dissidents because he convened a scientist panel to consider whether HIV causes AIDS.

While some commentators, notably in Africa, have understood his painstaking attempts to show the additional impact of grinding poverty on AIDS, he is misunderstood as a doubting Thomas. He often does not help himself by failing to make his position clear, both verbally and symbolically.

What this has done is make his Health Minister hesitant to act on the urgent need for treatment. "The prevarication by the Minister of Health amounts to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, particularly after the victory scored against the pharmaceutical companies," says a Cosatu statement.

While the Minister told the UN session that South Africa was introducing anti-AIDS drug therapy for pregnant women at nine test sites, she is still very hesitant about introducing a national programme that neighbouring Botswana is implementing.

"We have learnt through the preparation of these sites that indeed there is far more to this programme than the mere administration of an anti-retroviral drug. Concerns raised about the emergence of resistant viral strains following exposure to this drug will also be examined in these pilot sites," she said.

But Cosatu argues that there is no time for such an over- cautious approach. Instead, the federation pointed out that drug therapy has cut the death rate by up to 80 per cent in developed countries. In a country similar to South Africa - Brazil - the death rate had been cut by half.

"Brazil, like South Africa, has a relatively weak health system and massive income inequalities," believes Cosatu spokesperson Pat Craven.

He pointed out that South Africa managed to treat diseases like tuberculosis (TB), sugar diabetes and high blood pressure, all of which required lengthy treatment and monitoring.

"Similarly, the challenge with anti-retrovirals is to establish a monitoring system based on the existing network of clinics and communities," he says. To argue as government has done that AIDS is associated with poverty and therefore cannot have a pharmaceutical solution is equally wrong, Cosatu says.

"TB and cholera are equally associated with poverty. Yet no one would deny treatment to TB patients until we have eradicated poverty, or let people die of cholera until all South Africans have clean water," it says.(END/IPS/AF/HE/fk/mn/01)
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