Sunday Times, South Africa - July 16, 2000 Sunday Times editorial
CLOSING THE 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban on Friday afternoon, former President Nelson Mandela put it in a nutshell: the time for rhetoric was over, it was time for action. Mandela's speech, perhaps fittingly since it came at the close of the conference, finally directed attention at action and away from the sterile scientific debate between orthodox scientists and dissidents over whether or not HIV causes AIDS. It is by now abundantly clear that the two sides of this debate will never find each other. The final report of President Thabo Mbeki's AIDS panel does not enjoy the support of all panellists, and conference chairman Jerry Coovadia has expressed his regret at having participated in the panel at all. Mbeki himself disappointed many of those gathered in Durban by focusing his speech on poverty instead of on practical ways of engaging and combating the spread of the virus. The President came perilously close to endorsing the dissident view that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus, but by environmental factors. Mbeki's high profile on HIV/AIDS in recent months served to boost the conference, increasing media attention (an estimated 1 500 journalists attended). The conference was catapulted from being a medical forum to a global story, with newspapers across the world focusing strongly on the dimensions of the AIDS crisis in Africa. South Africa often fancies itself as a continental superpower which must shoulder the burden of leadership, but the conference showed that smaller, poorer countries in the Southern African Development Community have made much larger strides in fighting the disease. They have done this by using education campaigns where they have not had the wherewithal to supply drugs to those with AIDS. Mandela pointed out that the AIDS disaster was wiping out gains made in development in Africa, a point made on several occasions this week. South Africa has made strides, especially in destigmatising AIDS and in improving the social conditions in which HIV-positive people function. The heartbreakingly poignant testimony of HIV-positive Nkosi Johnson underscored this. He told of how he had struggled to be admitted to a school because of his HIV status. Since then, he reported proudly, the government has outlawed discrimination against those in his position. But these social advances have been accompanied by inertia when it comes to other, especially medical, interventions to slow the spread of the disease. As Johnson pleaded, the government needed to begin to do something to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS. New evidence at the conference showed that the cost of effective medical interventions was lower than ever before. This is the nettle that government needs to grasp. Without handing over the fiscus to pharmaceutical companies, it is now possible for the government to intervene at this most basic level of transmission with greater effectiveness than ever before. Mandela himself twice mentioned in his speech the prevention of mother-to-child transmission as a key priority. To suggest, as is the fashion when anyone argues for medical intervention, that Mandela is somehow in cahoots with pharmaceutical monopolies, is laughable. Thankfully, no such suggestion has yet been made, and Mandela's message may well finally change the way government is seeing this solution. Above all, the conference needs to produce among all South Africans a sense of urgency about the country's largest social crisis. Medical interventions must take place, but these need to be accompanied by education and primary health care on a massive scale. Dumb and dumber IN 1996, South Africans were stunned to learn that our Grade 7 and 8 pupils came last in a maths and science study that involved 40 countries. Despite startling evidence of a crisis, the education authorities did not come up with a national co-ordinated strategy. Somehow, even the experts doubted whether South Africa would have performed so badly if other African countries had also participated. Now, another study has revealed that South Africa's Grade 4 pupils have among the worst maths, literacy and life skills in Africa. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the latest research, completed last year, played a role in spurring on the Minister of Education, Kader Asmal, to take long-awaited action. He announced early in the year that there would be a national "systemic evaluation" in future which would see Grade 3, 6 and 9 pupils' maths and literacy capabilities tested. Asmal also appointed as his maths and science adviser Professor Michael Kahn, who this weekend tabled a working document to develop a strategy to improve science, maths and technology education. But, for the immediate future, the latest study shows that South Africa's education goes awry in the early years of schooling. That is where the government should focus its resources if it wishes to improve our matric results and our international performance in maths and science.
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