D URBAN , S OUTH A AFRICA - When the south African president Thabo Mbeki has risen to meet the opening ceremony of the international AIDS Conference XIII yesterday, thousands of researchers in packed Kingsmead Stadium hoped he was going to say three simple words: the causes of HIV AIDS. He did not do it. "He waffled while Rome burns," said Glenda Gray, a pediatrician who co-directs an HIV perinatal clinic in huge Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
Mbeki recently convened a panel to help his government develop policies against the growing AIDS crisis, but it has included so-called "dissidents", who insist that HIV does not cause the disease and whether AIDS is a new disease or old diseases collectively given a new name. scientists around the world have rebuked Mbeki to give new vitality to the dissidents, whose community arguments had it a few years ago to licensees background. Many hoped that the President would finally distance themselves from eccentric views.
But Mbeki addressed the issue indirectly. much of his speech quoted a report by the World Health Organization 1995 that fingered "poverty extreme "as" the biggest cause of ill health and suffering across the world. " Mbeki noted, however, that his government would continue to intensify its anti-AIDS campaign promoting condom use, support for research on vaccines against AIDS and HIV medications, and respond humanely "to people with AIDS and HIV. "But he made no mention of its decision not to provide relatively cheap course of anti-HIV drugs to infected, pregnant women, which studies have shown can reduce 50% HIV transmission to their babies.
failure of Mbeki to acknowledge directly that HIV causes AIDS researchers angered against AIDS in South Africa and elsewhere. "it was a good opportunity for him put a closure on the whole, and he did not, "complained virologist Lynn Morris, who works at the Johannesburg National Institute of virology and sat on the panel that Mbeki convened. Indeed, many researchers and activists have left during the speech by Mbeki.
Yet some South African researchers have seen up the speech as a step forward. "Considering all that we experienced in the past months, it is an excellent speech," said Malegapuru William Makgoba, Medical Research Council of the leader of the country and another member of the Mbeki panel. "He had the ability to just about AIDS. But he always talked about HIV-AIDS. Then he connects HIV to AIDS. "What some saw as the exact wording, Makgoba concluded was a" clever way "for Mbeki to disengage from the debate. Those who criticized the speech, Makgoba said, were" surly. "
Related Sites
XIII international AIDS Conference
the Durban Declaration
the connection of HIV-AIDS. National Institute of Information of allergy and infectious diseases
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