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(Johannesburg, South Africa) The government
scaled back the influence of its embattled minister for AIDS policy after a
group of international scientists labeled South Africa's program inefficient and
immoral and called for her to be fired.
Government spokesman Themba Maseko defended
Health Minister Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, but said Friday the Cabinet had
appointed a committee, headed by Deputy President Phumzilie Mlambo-Ngcuka, to
oversee the implementation of South Africa's AIDS program.
"We need to shift focus from saying the
problem in the program is the minister of health," Maseko said.
In an open letter to President Thabo Mbeki on
Wednesday, 81 international AIDS scientists called the health minister an
embarrassment to South Africa who has undermined HIV science and who has no
international respect. They called her policies "inefficient and
immoral."
The scientists include American Nobel Laureate
David Baltimore and Dr. Robert Gallo, a co-discoverer of the virus that causes
AIDS and developer of the first HIV blood test. They called for an end to South
Africa's "disastrous, pseudoscientific policies" and urged Mbeki to
remove the health minister immediately.
With the letter the scientists joined mounting
calls by AIDS activists and opposition parties for the president to fire
Tshabalala-Msimang.
South Africa has an estimated 5.5 million people
infected with HIV, a number second only to India and one that amounts to about
an eighth of estimated cases worldwide. On average, more than 900 people die of
the disease each day in South Africa. The government said Thursday that the
adult death rate had climbed significantly over a seven-year period, largely
because of AIDS.
Tshabalala-Msimang's office said in a statement
Friday that there was a campaign aimed at deliberately misrepresenting the
government's program to fight the disease.
Both the statement and the Cabinet reacted not
only to the scientists' letter, but also to other attacks on its policies at the
International AIDS conference in Toronto last month, including a scathing one by
Stephen Lewis, the U.N. special envoy for AIDS in Africa.
"It is the only country in Africa ... whose
government is still obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out
treatment," Lewis said. "It is the only country in Africa whose
government continues to promote theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of
a concerned and compassionate state."
The government, which did not provide AIDS drugs
until forced to do so by a 2002 court ruling, said its AIDS program is now the
largest in the world. It estimates it treats 140,000 people with anti-retroviral
drugs.
However, that number is less than half of the
target of 380,000 the government set in 2003 and well below the 500,000 South
Africans that the scientists estimate now need the drugs to survive.
Mbeki previously has expressed doubts about the
connection between HIV and AIDS, and along with Tshabalala-Msimang has
questioned the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs in treating the disease.
The health minister is often called "Dr.
Beetroot" because she promotes beetroot, garlic, lemons and African
potatoes as a way to fight AIDS.
The scientists noted that at the AIDS conference
the South African exhibition featured garlic, lemons and African potatoes,
"with the implication that these dietary elements are alternative
treatments."
Maseko said the health minister had made it clear
that South Africa's program included anti-retrovirals and nutrition, but that
she might have given the impression the focus was on nutrition and specific
nutrients.
"Nutrition is not an alternative to anti-retrovirals
or forms of treatment. This has always been the government approach on this
matter," Maseko said. "Equally, the misconception that anti-retrovirals
are a cure for AIDS is not only misleading but dangerous as it creates false
hopes."
©365Gay.com 2006
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