NEWS
SOUTH AFRICA CALLS FOR DEBT RELIEF TO HELP TACKLE AIDS

FROM: Independant (UK): AIDS in SA
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000

By Alex Duval Smith in Soweto


AIDS AND DEBT
President Thabo Mbeki’s government launched a new strategy on Tuesday 24 October 2000 for dealing with the AIDS virus. However it stopped short of pledging to provide drugs that can slow the progress of HIV in the four million South Africans estimated to be carrying it.

Nine “policy guideline” booklets, written for health professionals, are based on the premise that HIV leads to AIDS. This lays to rest speculation to the contrary by President Mbeki. The government however has made no pledge to manufacture or import affordable generic “anti-retrovirals”.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister, suggested to foreign journalists that debt be cancelled in order to allow for laboratories to be built where people on anti-retrovirals could be monitored.

UNAids estimates the economic and demographic impact of AIDS in South Africa and Zimbabwe to be the harshest in the world with an estimated 20% of South Africans HIV-positive. It is estimated that up to half of all the country’s teenagers will die from AIDS-related illnesses.

The African National Congress (ANC) government is opposed to the use of anti-retrovirals and justifies its stand on the grounds of cost, toxicity and lack of infrastructure. The ANC in the Western Cape accused the white-led Democratic Alliance of trying to poison black people by giving them anti-retrovirals.

Yesterday, Dr Tshabalala-Msimang said: "As far as AZT is concerned, our policy is that we shall not provide it [nationally] because it is beyond our means. If a drug company comes and says we can have it free for five years, that is not enough, because what about the next five years?"

JONATHAN FAULL

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