United Press International - Friday, 15 September 2000
David Shapshak

The half-page ads published Friday follow further embarrassing episodes in the government's bungled attempts to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic -- which has infected more than 4 million people. The ads come after an interview with Mbeki was published by Time magazine in which he spelled out his views on HIV/AIDS in the most detail yet, skirting the HIV issue and blaming "endemic poverty" and other cause for AIDS.

Last week in a highly-publicized radio interview, the country's health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, would not answer either yes or no if she believed HIV caused AIDS.

Then, last Thursday, a confidential document written by the national health committee in Mbeki's ruling African National Congress (ANC) -- a powerful policy advisory body -- called on Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang to acknowledge that HIV causes AIDS.

This came after the ANC's major alliance party -- the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) -- called on the government to end its "scientific speculation" about the cause of AIDS and concentrate on providing affordable treatment to people infected with HIV, which was "morally and medically right". The third alliance party, the South African Communist Party, was similarly forthright.

The ads are the latest uneasy event in the bizarre response by the government to tackle the HIV/AIDS problem, particularly as South Africa has one of the world's highest growth rates for the epidemic. They also follow the admission earlier this week by Essop Pahad, the Minister in the President's Office, who is the political head of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), that he had failed to communicate Mbeki's stance on the link between HIV and Aids effectively.

The ANC's parliamentary whips have also written to Mbeki asking him to brief the party's parliamentary caucus in an effort to clear up misunderstandings about the government's policy on HIV and AIDS.

The ads, which are an attempt to "put the issue beyond doubt in the public mind", were placed by the GCIS. They say "neither the president nor his cabinet colleagues have ever denied a link between HIV and AIDS".

"This is made clear if one refers to the full transcript of the president's interview last week with Time magazine," the ad asserts. "The published edited version in Time, on which many critics now depend, conflated his remarks in a way which could give rise to a misunderstanding over his use of the word 'no' after being asked if he was prepared to acknowledge that there was a link between HIV and Aids. "In fact, the president went on to say 'you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus'. The context of the full transcript makes it expressly clear he was prepared to accept that HIV might 'very well' be a causal factor.

"The president went on to say AIDS is a syndrome. It's a whole variety of diseases which affect a person because something negative has happened to the immune system. If the scientists come back and say this virus is part of the variety of things from which people acquire immune deficiency, I have no problem with that. But to say this is the sole cause, therefore the only response to it is anti-retroviral drugs -- I am saying we will never be able to solve the AIDS problem."

But this does not address Mbeki's failure to unequivocally state that AIDS is caused by HIV. The country's leading political newspaper, the Mail & Guardian, Friday devoted its entire front page to the issue, with the headline: "Just say yes, Mr. President" below a full page picture of Mbeki.

"The vast majority of scientists are in agreement that HIV causes AIDS. South Africa is gripped by a catastrophe that is killing millions of our people. The government's questioning of the link between HIV and AIDS is crippling the campaign to combat the scourge," the weekly newspaper wrote, warning that either he "gets his act together on HIV/AIDS very soon or he places his presidency at risk".

"We South Africans are losing the battle against this disease. This is, in no small measure, the result of the refusal by Mbeki to accept the guidance of best science. That refusal is irrational and perverse," the paper says in its editorial.

Even Mbeki's predecessor, Nelson Mandela, has chided him for his ambiguity, while one of his fiercest supporters, Mandela's controversial ex-wife Winnie Madikizela- Mandela, slammed him at 13th International Aids Conference, held in South Africa in July.

In essence, Mbeki's argument, as he told Time, is there are a "a whole variety of things that can cause the immune system to collapse. Endemic poverty, the impact of nutrition, contaminated water .. repetitive infections of malaria, ordinary STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). .... All of these will result in immune deficiency."

However, despite Friday's newspaper ads' attempts to explain away the ambiguity, these comments are not out of sync with his previous attitudes. Frustrating for AIDS activists and non-governmental organizations battling to combat a severe lack of awareness problem -- one commonly held perception is that unprotected sex with a virgin or young girl can cure AIDS -- are Mbeki's blunders. which belie his stated commitment to solving epidemic.

Not least of which is the now-infamous letter to President Bill Clinton and other world leaders - leaked to the Washington Post earlier this year -- defending the so-called AIDS dissidents -- who refute AIDS is caused by HIV, despite their theories being refuted by their scientific peers. But, not only has Mbeki flaunted the established scientific opinion on HIV been causally responsible for AIDS, but given these dissidents prominence in his state-sponsored AIDS advisory panel -- convened to advise him on how to tackle the epidemic.

Seemingly worse, is refusal of his government to supply anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant mothers to prevent the transmission of the virus to their babies. Drug companies have offered vast discounts but the health ministry has countered that providing such drugs would exhaust the entire health budget.

However, health academics and AIDS activists readily point out that the cost of supplying a single dose of an antiretroviral drug would far outweigh the cost of supporting babies who would require hospital treatment that would be far more each day.
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