OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Cape Town | Wednesday
SOUTH African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has provided the government’s clearest statement yet on its policy on anti-retroviral drugs during a fiery debate in parliament, saying it “simply cannot afford” the drugs.
Government has in the past it has cited toxicity and possible long-term side effects as reasons for not providing drugs like AZT and Nevirapine to those infected with HIV.
“We shall continue to treat those who present to the public health system for any condition as best we can,” Tshabalala-Msimang said.
“At the same time, we reiterate that as a country, we simply cannot afford the use of anti-retrovirals for wide scale treatment at their current prices.”
Public health doctors estimate that to treat HIV-pregnant women with Nevirapine to reduce mother-to-child transmissions would cost about R40m. However, to provide anti-retrovirals to all 4.2 million South Africans currently infected with HIV would cost in the region of R6bn.
Health workers claim that the reason President Thabo Mbeki questions the link between HIV and AIDS is that if he was to admit the link, he would be obliged legally to provide anti-retrovirals to all those infected with the disease.
The ANC’s Dr Abe Nkomo refused to link HIV to Aids, instead blaming the disease on Third World ills like poverty, malnutrition, and oppression, adding that “the ravages of globalisation” had placed poor rural Africans at the centre of the epidemic.
Nkomo also defended Mbeki’s appointment of a panel to probe conventional wisdom about HIV/Aids, saying the government would not stop its quest to find answers to the questions that remain about the disease.
The debate marked but one of several times in the past six weeks that argument has erupted in parliament over the cause of HIV/Aids, the most memorable being on September 26 when Mbeki told MPs “a virus cannot cause a syndrome.”