The Democratic Alliance has criticised President Thabo Mbeki for his statements on HIV and Aids made during his state visit to Singapore on Thursday, saying he should stay out of the debate.
Responding to a question after addressing business leaders in Singapore on Thursday, Mbeki said experts at a World Health Organisation conference in South Africa last week agreed with him that nutrition is a very important aspect of the matter.
He said it is ”not merely the availability of taking a pill and that is the end of the story”, but that effective Aids contravention requires a healthy body, an effective health-care system and efficient dispensing mechanisms.
”Quite why it became controversial I don’t know, to me it was pretty simple,” Mbeki said. ”That is what caused the controversy, but I think now that people have understood.”
The answer was well received by many of the audience, who later said it has explained Mbeki’s thinking on the matter, which attracted international attention in 2000.
In a statement issued in Cape Town later, DA health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard said she is disappointed Mbeki still appears to view Aids as a disease of malnutrition and poverty, to be cured by a healthy diet.
”Medical research shows that healthy eating can, to a point, be effective in holding back the progression of HIV into full-blown Aids. But nutrition alone will not stop the decimation of the CD4 count by the HI virus — only anti-retrovirals [ARVs] can do that,” she said.
The government is spending hundreds of millions of rands on an ARV roll-out programme, having eventually been persuaded that these drugs are the only long-term solution to South Africa’s Aids crisis.
Mbeki has a responsibility to support this programme, not undermine it, she said.
”In an environment where dissident views on Aids appear to have such high-level support, Mbeki’s comments will only give substance to the perception they foster that ARVs are dangerous poisons.”
This could have serious consequences for the health of HIV-positive South Africans.
Mbeki is playing into the hands of ”charlatans like Matthias Rath”, who is trying to convince South Africans they can cure themselves of this lethal disease with vitamin C tablets, said Kohler-Barnard.
”At the peak of the controversy over his support for Aids dissidents, President Mbeki promised to withdraw from the debate. He would have done better to remain outside of it,” she said. — Sapa