South African Aids activists have slammed the International Aids Conference for being a show of celebrities and philanthropists, instead of people living with HIV/Aids who could raise the real issues they face.
”We want to ask the International Aids Society that the conference should justify its theme, Time to Deliver, by addressing the real problems of people who are dying while waiting for treatment,” Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) general secretary Sipho Mthati told a press conference on Wednesday.
Scores of TAC members and HIV-positive people from other countries stood in the press conference holding up posters that read: ”Bill Gates is not our voice” and ”Face reality about HIV/Aids. People are dying, be not artificial about people’s lives.”
Gates and former United States president Bill Clinton have featured prominently at the conference, as both have foundations that provide funding to various Aids causes.
”We are aggrieved that this conference has been more a conference for Hollywood stars, philanthropists … than the voice of people who are sitting at home dying of Aids,” Mthati said.
She said that while the commitment shown by Gates and Clinton was appreciated, real and practical issues such as making second-line therapy available to those who need it, and the political will of governments, had not been addressed.
”If the conference ends without any of these things being addressed, then it should be declared a failure,” said Mthati.
She was upset that the conference had not made a statement about the death of a Westville prison inmate in Cape Town, who was put on to anti-retroviral treatment only after two years of waiting. The prisoner was one of several who went to court demanding access to anti-retroviral treatment.
The government is appealing a decision by the Durban High Court, ordering prison authorities to provide the service.
TAC chairperson Zackie Achmat said he wanted Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour to be charged with culpable homicide.
IAS president Helene Gayle, who had not known of the prisoner’s death, said Mthati had mentioned several important issues that needed to be addressed.
Mthati said Aids denialism in South Africa had taken on ”some of the most perverse forms” — either denying there is an Aids virus, or admitting it and suggesting alternative, untested choices of treatment.
She was referring to Tshabalala-Msimang’s promotion of garlic, lemon and beetroot in the fight against the pandemic.
After the press conference, the group of activists weaved, chanting and dancing, through a massive crowd of delegates to the South African exhibition, which displayed the foodstuffs alongside anti-retrovirals. It was a ”farce”, some activists charged. ”How many lemons are you going to eat when your CD4 count drops below 200?” shouted a woman.
TAC national manager Nathan Geffen clashed with exhibition organisers when he tried to remove garlic from the stand. He said the stand was the most expensive at the exhibition, adding that the money spent on it could have been used to provide the Westville prisoner with anti-retroviral treatment.
Activists lay on the ground inside the stall as a symbol of those who had died without receiving treatment. ”Fire Manto now,” they chanted as passers-by gathered round to see what was going on.
South Africa’s Aids response was ”the worst response in the world to the epidemic and not the most comprehensive”, the activists maintained.
Khomanani project coordinator Karabo Moraka, who was manning the stall, said the protesters were ”misguided”, but it was their constitutional right to demonstrate. — Sapa