Belinda Beresford
The government is set to move ahead with its current policies on the HIV/Aids epidemic, despite the failure of the presidential Aids advisory panel to agree on many issues, including whether HIV causes Aids.
The interim report of the advisory panel is a “synthesis of deliberations” on HIV/Aids among some of the most famous and controversial experts on the subject in the world.
The panel failed to reach consensus on many issues, including a causal link between HIV and Aids, the treatment and prevention of the diseases and the need and ability to test for HIV.
Saying that stimulating debate rather than reaching agreement was the purpose of the panel, the government nonetheless will continue to follow the orthodox view that the HI virus causes Aids.
However, it will drive forward further research, including into the efficacy of local testing for HIV in conjunction with research centres in the United States.
Similarly, the government will continue with HIV testing and surveillance, as well as the provision of anti-retroviral drugs as part of a study into curbing the transmission of HIV from mother to child.
The Aids advisory panel was controversially set up to investigate a number of issues around HIV/Aids including whether there is a link between the two. A striking feature of the interim report is how far apart the opposing schools of thought on the subject remain, even after almost a year of deliberations costing more than R2,5-million.
The report concentrates on the causes and transmission of Aids, including the involvement of co-factors. It also looked at the issue of HIV tests and their accuracy, and the use of anti-retroviral drugs in treating Aids. Further chapters concentrate on the preventive and prophylactic measures against Aids and the social and economic impacts.
The document is largely a report on the different viewpoints regarding HIV. For example, orthodox scientists presented information indicating the link between HIV, Aids and mortality. Dr Malegapuru Makgoba, head of the Medical Research Council (MRC), presented data showing that of every 1 000 HIV-negative infants born in Soweto, 17 died, compared to 362 among HIV-positive births.
The dissidents argue that HIV is not the cause of Aids, or alternatively that Aids does not exist.
The split is so irreconcilable that the concluding recommendations of the panel come in two different forms: those from panellists “who do not subscribe to the causal linkage between HIV and Aids” and those who do.
Among other offshoots of the advisory panel is further scientific research. For example, several thousand samples already tested for HIV by South African laboratories have been sent to the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States for further testing on the accuracy of the tests. Sources on the panel have indicated that the South African tests have so far passed with flying colours. The cost to the MRC and CDC is estimated to be up to $75 000. Further scrutiny of the tests is under way.
The final report of the advisory panel will appear at some indeterminate point in the future, according to government sources.