Participants at the second national Aids conference that ended in Durban on Friday have hailed the event as a huge success.
Professor Jerry Coovadia from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said the conference was proof that South Africa was really a democracy because of the solidarity between academics, non-governmental organisations as well as the young and old.
”We have sources of power in ordinary people,” said Coovadia.
However, he also criticised the ”hypocrites and charlatans” who are ”trading in on Aids”.
He told delegates that they served as a source of protection for people living with the disease against rank hypocrisy and disinformation. ”If you sow such confusion you create a situation which is untenable,” Coovadia said.
He said HIV/Aids, unlike diabetes, was a ”social disease” and that people would much easier believe what they were told when it came from someone from a higher social position.
The chairperson of the South African Medical Association, Doctor Kgosi Letlape, also addressed delegates at the closing session on Friday, saying: ”Instead of safe sex let’s talk about safe relationships.”
He told them that collectively they could ensure that all those living with the disease could be treated.
”Our aim is to treat everybody that needs to be treated” said Letlape.
Treatment Action Campaign spokesperson Zackie Achmat said the conference was good in that it ”put science on the map … and gave a knock to superstition”.
”The most important thing we need to do is save lives and to ensure that proper systems are in place” Achmat said.
According to the TAC, 50 000 South Africans are currently on anti-retroviral drugs. The TAC wants that figure to increase to 200 000 by next year.
If all pregnant women in need of anti-retrovirals were placed on the medication, it would amount to an additional 50 000 being treated, Achmat said. The figure could be doubled if those with TB were also given the medication.
Asked whether the TAC would join forces with government to intensify the ARV roll-out campaign he said: ”We will partner with the devil if it will save lives.”
He referred to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang — who is scheduled on Sunday to take delegates of the national youth council to a site where her HIV/Aids nutrition programme of garlic, olive oil and beetroot is being used to treat people with the disease.
”It’s regrettable, that the minister is taking a step back,” said Achmat. He said Deputy President Jacob Zuma had taken the stance that both good nutrition and medication was needed to combat the disease.
The first national aids conference was held in 2003. This year at least 4 000 delegates from around the country converged in the International Convention Centre in Durban.
Conference chairperson Lynn Morris said the next conference would be held in June 2007 and would be chaired by Dr Olive Shisana of the Medical Research Council. – Sapa