New York Times - October 17, 2000
Henri E. Cauuin

For months, Mr. Mbeki has publicly questioned the role that the human immunodeficiency virus, or H.I.V., plays in causing AIDS and speculated about the place that poverty and malnutrition may have in passing on the affliction.

The controversy bubbled up in March when it emerged that Mr. Mbeki had begun assembling a scientific advisory panel that would include dissident scientists who argue that AIDS is not caused by H.I.V.

He had already entangled himself in another AIDS dispute last October , when he and his health minister disputed the safety and effectiveness of AZT, a standard drug used to block transmission of H.I.V. from mother to child. The health minister later conceded that the drug was safe enough to dispense but said the government could not afford it.

Activists and researchers here and abroad have criticized the president's comments as irresponsible and baffling, particularly since South Africa, with 4.2 million people who are H.I.V.-positive, has more infections than any other country in the world.

Bowing to the realities of a consuming public relations problem, Mr. Mbeki has decided to curb his own comments on the cause of AIDS, said the government spokesman, Joel Netshitenzhe.

"He has scaled down on his participation in the debate," said Mr. Netshitenzhe, who said the president had delegated the question to a committee of ministers so that he could attend to other matters.

In moving to minimize his profile on the issue, Mr. Mbeki is, without renouncing his ideas or opinions on the subject, effectively conceding that the criticism that has dogged him for months has damaged more than his own reputation.

Even staunch political allies of the president and his governing African National Congress party have moved to distance themselves from Mr. Mbeki's pronouncements on H.I.V. and AIDS. Last month, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party publicly stated that H.I.V. causes AIDS and called on the president to do the same.

So far Mr. Mbeki has not done so, going only so far as to say, in remarks to Parliament last month, that the government's AIDS policies are based on the "thesis" that H.I.V. causes AIDS, a distinction that compounded the frustration of some of his critics.

Yet a number of moves this month suggest that the mounting criticism finally forced the government to do something more dramatic, even it fell short of the blanket admission many people demanded.

An ad campaign begun earlier this month emphasizes the government's advocacy of AIDS awareness and prevention, a message that was being undermined, Mr. Netshitenzhe said, by the intense attention Mr. Mbeki was receiving by local and foreign news media.

"The manner in which the debate on the scientific issues was being reported tended to cloud what government's position was on the issue was," he said.

And a decision to expand research into the effectiveness of Nevirapine in combating mother-to-child transmission has encouraged some advocates who were dismayed by the government's reluctance to provide some anti-AIDS drugs that have shown promising results elsewhere.

Morna Cornell, the director of the AIDS Consortium, an umbrella organization representing more than 350 AIDS groups here, said the shift on Nevirapine was one heartening sign that the inertia to which the president had contributed was finally ending.

As much as she wished the president had gone further and agreed that H.I.V. causes AIDS, she said, she was relieved that he had at least did what he did.

"I was just profoundly glad that it happened," Ms. Cornell said. "At least he's being strategic enough to recognize the damage that has been caused and to acknowledge it and to extract himself from it. We really just hope it's going to simmer down and we can see some real action."

Whether this latest attempt at damage control succeeds will be a crucial test for the president and staff, who came into office last year buoyed by optimism only to see their plans bogged down by the rancor over AIDS and by the civil unrest in neighboring Zimbabwe.

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