South Africa's AIDS policy 'comical'

The South African government came under harsh criticism over its AIDS policy at the close of the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada.

Top U.N. official and special envoy on AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, brought the conference to a close with an attack on South Africa's approach to AIDS, calling it immoral and ineffective with "theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state".

Lewis was not alone in his viewpoint as his comments were echoed by other speakers at the conference which criticised President Thabo Mbeki's government.

South Africa is struggling to deal with one of the world's largest HIV/AIDS caseloads with as many as five million people, or one in nine South Africans infected.

In response Health Ministry spokesman Sibani Mngadi has issued a statement rejecting Lewis' speech "with contempt" and saying Lewis is not "Africa's Messiah".

Mngadi cited South African accomplishments on AIDS including the distribution of millions of free condoms and a free drug program that now reaches more than 175,000 infected people.

But Patricia de Lille, the Independent Democrats leader, says the South African health minister, should be sacked immediately as she caused "terrible damage" to South Africa's reputation every time she opened her mouth.

According to de Lille, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang failure to efficiently deliver anti-retrovirals to the hundreds of thousands of poor with IADS is a direct result of her fringe beliefs in dealing with the virus.

But South Africa has been at odds with AIDS activists and medical experts for years over how to deal with an epidemic which kills more than 800 people in the country every day and Mbeki's government initially denied that the HIV virus causes AIDS and then resisted offering HIV drugs to its people, calling them expensive and potentially dangerous.

It was not until 2003, following a public outcry, that the government launched a public antiretroviral (ARV) drug program which officials now call one of the biggest in the world.

But Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang still questions ARVs and instead promotes home-grown remedies such as olive oil, beetroot and garlic saying they boost nutrition and immune response, remedies which experts say not only have little value but endanger lives.

Delegates at the conference were reportedly shocked by South Africa's exhibition stall which displayed beetroot, garlic and lemons alongside containers of anti-AIDS medicines and many in the media say the minister comes across as an embarrassing clown.

Leading newspapers too have called on President Thabo Mbeki to fire Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, but Mbeki's ruling ANC government appears to have no plans to revise its strategy.

In a statement on Friday the ANC attacked the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa's AIDS activist group which led the criticism of Tshabalala-Msimang at the conference.

The statement says 'such confrontational posturing may be necessary for the maintenance of the TAC's international profile, but it does nothing to strengthen the country's comprehensive response to HIV and AIDS'.