/ 10 October 2000

Mbeki ‘sanctions genocide of babies’

BRYAN PEARSON, Port Elizabeth | Tuesday

SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki’s refusal to provide anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant women is tantamount to sanctioning genocide of babies, an exasperated public health doctor has claimed.

The view is growing, Costa Gazi said, that Mbeki and his government would rather babies of HIV-positive mothers are born infected with the virus so that they die quickly and relieve the state of the burden of having to provide for them after their mothers die.

“It’s not deliberate genocide but the effect of what he is doing is precisely that.”

Official figures show that some 5_ 000 HIV-positive babies are born in South Africa each month.

Gazi, head of the large Cecilia Makiwane public hospital and a member of the small opposition Pan Africanist Congress party who spent 22 years working in Britain’s public health system while a political exile during the apartheid era, said he believed that economics lay at the heart of Mbeki’s controversial views.

Because Mbeki is committed to the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macro-economic policy – which severly limits public spending – he literally cannot afford to spend huge amounts of money on anti-retrovirals, Gazi said.

But the doctor estimates it would cost just R40m to provide Nevirapine to all pregant mothers in South Africa, as the makers of the drug have offered to provide it free of charge.

Mbeki has rejected the offer, saying more research is needed to investigate its toxic side-effects.

Of more concern to Mbeki, Gazi says, is that if he provides anti-retrovirals to pregnant women, the country’s 4.2 million HIV/AIDS sufferers would have a sound legal claim for similar treatment – at a cost to the country of some R6bn.

Gazi believes that amount of money can be found if the government declares a moratorium on repayment of apartheid debts, and cuts back on its plans to spend R30bn on arms.

“The government believes GEAR is vital to attract foreign investment,” Gazi said, adding bitterly: “You can’t make money out of babies.”

Gazi has dipped into his own pocket to buy stocks of Nevirapine, which he dishes out privately to pregnant women who have tested positive for HIV/Aids.

“Unless you treat people who are infected you are not going to stop the epidemic.”