On
May 6 and 7, 2000 South Africa would have taken
yet another major step in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
The Presidential Aids Advisory Council would have
met to consider key questions such as:
What
causes the immune deficiency leading to AIDS?
What is the best response to these causes? Why
is HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa hetero-sexually
transmitted?
What
are the drug based responses for developing
countries? What responses are appropriate for
people with HIV/AIDS; for preventing mother-to-child
transmission; or for preventing transmission
after rape?
The
discussions would have been located within the
conditions of dire poverty and diseases such
as TB and Malaria experienced by the majority
of South Africans. We present here answers to
some of the key questions you may have about
Government’s stance.
| It sounds like the days when the apartheid government
banned people from speaking in public… |
Precisely. As the
President points out, it was not so long ago
that our people were killed, tortured, imprisoned
and prohibited from being quoted because the
authorities believed their views were dangerous
and discredited.
"We are now
being asked to do precisely the same thing that
the racist apartheid tyranny did because, it
is said, there exists a scientific view that
is supported by the majority, against which
dissent is prohibited."
"The scientists
we are supposed to put into scientific quarantine
include Nobel Prize winners, members of Academies
of Science and Emeritus Professors of various
disciplines of medicine". The tragic irony,
the President says, is that "people who
otherwise would fight very hard to defend freedom
of thought and speech occupy the front-line
in the campaign of intellectual intimidation
and terrorism" with regard to the HIV-AIDS
issue.
"They argue
that the only freedom we have is to agree with
what they decree to be established scientific
truths".
| The President’s recent comments on HIV-AIDS seem to have stirred up some controversy. Why? |
In
his recent letter to President Clinton, our
President was very direct on the need to urgently
find appropriate ways to treat and prevent HIV-AIDS
in South Africa.
For
one thing, he’s saying the world should
not limit its investigations into the causes
of HIV-AIDS. The disease poses such a massive
threat to humanity that we should explore every
possible avenue, he says. We should not close
our minds to possible solutions, no matter how
much that flies in the face of conventional
wisdom.
Secondly,
the President is saying the nature of HIV-AIDS
in Africa poses specific challenges. HIV-AIDS
is devastating sub-Saharan Africa – and
the President believes that Africa needs to
map out its own response to this.
Thirdly,
the President has questioned the effectiveness
of AIDS treatments such as AZT, and argued that
there should be ongoing tests into their effectiveness
before they are prescribed on a large scale.
| But why are these views controversial? |
As
the President says, there is an "orchestrated
campaign of condemnation" against anyone
who dares to challenge conventional wisdom on
the treatment of HIV-AIDS at the moment.
"Scientists,
in the name of science, are demanding that we
should co-operate with them to freeze scientific
discourse on HIV-AIDS at the specific point
this discourse had reached in the West in 1984,"
he says.
Some
people have suggested that South Africa should
only be drawing on the advice of certain scientists.
It has been suggested, for instance, that some
scientist are "dangerous and discredited",
and that nobody should communicate or interact
with them. This is an absurd argument: as the
President says, "in an earlier period in
human history, these dangerous scientists would
be heretics and they would be burnt at the stake!"
| It sounds like the government is just setting up
committees… |
Not at all –
even though these committees are important structures
in themselves. It’s important to note that
the government has also launched several highly
successful high-profile campaigns to encourage
safe sex and the use of condoms.
It has set up a
dedicated fund to finance the fight against
HIV-AIDS. This is in addition to funds that
central, provincial and local government will
spend on this campaign.
The government
is funding work that is being done by the Medical
Research Council to develop an AIDS vaccine.
Similarly, it is
doing everything possible to provide the necessary
treatment and care for those affected by HIV-AIDS.
"As a government
and a people, we are trying to organise ourselves
to ensure that we take care of the children
affected and orphaned to AIDS, "the President
states in his letter.
"We are also
ensuring that no section of our society –
whether public or private – discriminate
against people suffering from HIV-AIDS."
At the same time,
as an essential part of the campaign against
HIV-AIDS, the government is focusing on the
elimination of poverty.
| So what is President Mbeki and his government actually doing about HIV-AIDS? |
In
his letter to President Clinton, the President
is unequivocally clear on government’s
commitment to fighting HIV-AIDS.
He
points out how, since 1998, the government has
radically stepped up its campaign. It has done
this in many ways, including the establishment
of three powerful structures:
- A
Ministerial Task Force, chaired by the Deputy
President, to ensure a co-ordinated government
response
- A
Partnership Against AIDS, to ensure co-ordinated
action by civil society – including the
youth, women, business, unions and the religious
community
- A
high-powered National AIDS Council, again
chaired by the Deputy President, which brings
together government and civil society
| Just
how much of a threat is HIV-AIDS? And why is
the President so involved at the moment? |
South
Africa is among the worst infected countries
in the world. International organisations such
as UNAIDS have reported that Sub-Saharan Africa
accounts for two-thirds of the world’s
incidence of HIV-AIDS.
UNAIDS
and World Health Organisation reports for 1998
said AIDS was responsible for one death in five
in Africa – or about two million people.
UNAIDS believes there are 23 million carriers
in Africa of HIV.
The
same report says: " In Southern Africa,
the prevalence of the infection has increased
so much in five years that this region could,
if the epidemic continues to spread at this
rate, see its life expectancy decline to 47
by 2005."
The
report went on to say that almost 1 500 people
are infected in South Africa every day and that,
at that point, the equivalent of 3,8-million
people in our country carried the virus.
Dealing
with a threat of this nature requires the focus
on the entire government, which is why the President
has become closely involved in attempts to control
the spread of HIV-AIDS, to influence behaviour,
and to try to find a vaccine.
| But why does the President insist that the approach
to HIV-AIDS should be different in Africa? |
As the President points
out in his letter to President Clinton, we face
a uniquely African catastrophe.
- Contrary to
the West, where HIV-AIDS primarily affects
homosexual men it is heterosexually transmitted
in Africa
- Contrary to
the West, where relatively few people have
died from AIDS, millions have died in Africa;
and,
- Contrary to
the West, where AIDS deaths are declining,
even greater numbers of Africans are destined
to die.
The President’s
concerns are clear: "Whatever lessons we
draw from the West about HIV-AIDS, it would
be absurd and illogical to make a simple superimposition
of Western experience on African reality."
The President highlighted the urgency of responding
to the specific threat that faces us as Africans.
"We will not eschew our obligation in favour
of… what may well be a correct response
to the manifestation of AIDS in the West, "
he said.
"We will not
condemn our own people to death by giving up
the search for specific and targeted responses
to the specifically African incidence of HIV-AIDS."
Ignoring reality,
the President says, "would constitute a
criminal betrayal of our responsibility to our
own people."
| Is it true, then, that the President will not allow people with HIV-AIDS to receive medication? |
Nothing
could be further from the truth. No one in South
Africa is prohibited from issuing, or getting
access to, drugs such as AZT.
But
it would be irresponsible for the government
to issue medication if it wasn’t absolutely
sure of the consequences, and this is why the
government is insisting on very strict testing
of these drugs. These tests are underway at
the moment, and are aimed at assessing the toxicity
of drugs and the affordability.
The
results of the tests will obviously influence
future government decisions.
Compiled by: Joel Netshitenzhe,
CEO: GCIS
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