AFP and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday
PRESSURE is mounting for President Thabo Mbeki and his health ministry to publicly state that HIV causes Aids and to clarify what steps the government will be taking against the fatal disease.
While 200 chanting activists demonstrated against Mbeki’s Aids policy near parliament in Cape Town on Wednesday, a confidential policy document written by the African National Congress health committee was leaked to the media. The ANC committee calls on the government to clarify its ambiguous policy.
The mostly female demonstrators were members of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) which wants the government to urgently implement an anti-Aids drugs programme to stop mother-to-child transmission of the virus.
Mbeki and his health ministry have refused to make anti-retroviral drugs freely available at public hospitals, with the president saying the drugs’ efficacy has not been proven and it could be toxic.
Some four million South Africans are said to be infected with HIV.
The protesters said Mbeki should not only reconsider making drugs available for economic reasons, but he should take moral factors into account as well.
“The vast majority of the women and children affected by the disease are black and poor. By refusing them treatment government is saying that poor black people do not matter. This is immoral,” one protester said.
The Cape Times reports that a confidential document written by members of the ANC’s national health committee calls on the government to publicly acknowledge that HIV is the cause of Aids.
“We have identified the cause [of Aids]. The infectious agent is HIV, which is a retrovirus,” the document says. “The predominant scientific view that HIV causes Aids is the view that the ANC, its leadership and its membership has to publicly express.”
Both Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang have recently refused to say whether they believe HIV causes Aids, but strangely, also deny saying that the virus is not the cause of the syndrome.
The draft document, which has been sent to Mbeki’s office, Tshabalala-Msimang and other senior ANC officials, has already caused a fallout in the organisation.
“The [health] minister was furious and demanded that we withdraw the document,” says a member of the committee who asked not to be named. “We refused because this is a moral stand that we need to take.”
The ANC’s health committee reports to secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe. It does not have decision-making powers, but is intended to advise the health ministry on policy. Although Tshabalala-Msimang is the committee’s chair, deputy chair Confidence Moloko effectively runs the group.
Moloko, who wrote the document, says it does not reflect the official views of the ANC.
“This is a confidential discussion document intended to stimulate debate within the organisation,” Moloko says. “There is nothing secretive about it but it is only intended for people in the ANC. We are not ready to release it to the public yet.”