Shock and outrage erupted across South Africa yesterday in response to President Thabo Mbeki’s denial that he knew anyone with Aids.
‘Personally, I don’t know anybody who has died of Aids,’ Mbeki told the New York Times while at the United Nations General Assembly last week. Asked if he knew anyone who was HIV-positive, he responded, ‘I really, honestly, don’t know.’
This sparked fury in South Africa where an estimated five million are infected with HIV — more than one in 10 of the 45-million population. Critics accused Mbeki of dishonesty and demanded an apology to a nation where, every day, 600 die of Aids and 250 babies are born with HIV.
Mbeki’s own spokesperson, Parks Mankahlana, died two years ago after being diagnosed HIV-positive. Other prominent members of Mbeki’s African National Congress (ANC) party have also died of Aids, including Peter Mokaba, leader of the party’s youth wing.
For years Mbeki has refused to accept that HIV causes Aids and his government has delayed making available cheap anti-retroviral drugs that would save millions of lives. In August the government reversed its opposition to the drugs and later this month it is due to unveil a programme to make them available.
Last week, a survey showed Aids-related disability claims in the South African workforce have risen from 18% of total disability claims in 2001 to 31% last year. ‘This is the most obvious tangible evidence of the impact of HIV/Aids in the workplace,’ said Sean Jelley, chief executive of Lifeworks, which conducted the survey. And he warned: ‘As HIV-positive employees progress to the symptomatic stages of the disease leading rapidly to total incapacity and then death, the number of disability and death payouts will increase.’
Despite all the evidence, Mbeki persists in denial and has again missed a priceless opportunity to acknowledge the problem and help lift the stigma surrounding Aids. ‘He should apologise to the nation,’ said Mike Waters, spokesperson on HIV/Aids for the opposition Democratic Alliance. Waters said the President had been ‘highly insensitive’ and added ‘insult to injury’ to South Africans battling the disease. ‘It is clear that President Mbeki’s inner circle are rich enough to afford their own antiretrovirals and that he has little sympathy or understanding of the epidemic sweeping our country,’ said Waters.
The leader of the Independent Democrats, Patricia de Lille, said Mbeki ‘should be ashamed of himself’ and said this latest statement ‘confirms that he believes HIV does not cause Aids’.
Mbeki’s most potent critic on Aids, HIV-positive activist Zackie Achmat, offered to introduce Mbeki to South Africans fighting the disease. ‘I invite the President to make friends with some of the thousands of people living with HIV and to witness the deaths of people who do not have access to medicines,’ said Achmat. He encouraged Mbeki and ‘his large circle of comrades’ to be tested for HIV and to publicise the results to help lift the stigma on Aids.
Earlier this month Achmat (41) began taking medication and much of South Africa heaved a sigh of relief. For four years he had refused to take the life-saving drugs until Mbeki’s government made them available to all.
Achmat heads the Treatment Action Campaign, a grassroots group working to make affordable, generic anti-retrovirals available to all South Africans. As the government stubbornly refused to accept the positive benefits of the drugs, Achmat’s health deteriorated. He suffered lung infections and weight loss, just as thousands of poor South Africans saw their HIV infections progress towards full-blown Aids.
At a time when the stigma of Aids was so strong in South Africa that a young woman was knifed to death after stating on a radio broadcast that she was HIV-positive, Achmat and other TAC members boldly wore T-shirts with ‘HIV Positive’ in bright purple lettering. When Nelson Mandela donned an ‘HIV Positive’ T-shirt, it was symbolic of the great strides being made to get the public to accept that the best way to battle Aids is through education and treatment.
‘Clearly much more work is needed,’ said Achmat. ‘We are fighting for the lives of millions of South Africans. We all need to be open and honest about this disease, including President Mbeki.’ – Guardian Unlimited Â