South Africa’s embattled health minister received a rare public boost on Wednesday when hundreds of traditional healers marched in Johannesburg to support her natural treatments for HIV/Aids.
Several hundred healers, many wrapped in red cloaks and headscarves, praised Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and urged the government to give greater weight to traditional remedies as it battles one of the world’s worst Aids pandemics.
Placards showed messages that were anti-Treatment Action Campaign, anti-Democratic Alliance and anti-gay, while speakers voiced harsh feelings that Western medicine was taking advantage of traditional knowledge for profit and greed.
The marchers handed over a memorandum, which was received by the Gauteng health department’s Patrick Maduna on behalf of provincial minister Brian Hlongwa, and called for the fast-tracking of the Traditional Healers Practice Act.
”It is unacceptable that such important legislation is delayed by 18 months,” it read.
The memorandum further demanded the establishment of a provincial directorate of traditional medicine.
It asked: ”Can the department protect this noble profession from thugs that claim to be interested in our profession but only want to modernise us through research that is aimed at fulfilling their selfish financial interest and greed?”
During the march, the national coordinator of the Traditional Healers’ Association, Phephsile Maseko, told the South African Press Association that Tshabalala-Msimang was the only person in high office to understand the disparities between Western and traditional medicine.
”She has been trying hard to narrow the gap.”
Traffic came to a standstill in parts of central Johannesburg to make way for the protest, which saw healers singing, dancing and ululating. Some placards warned of the dangers of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs — the only treatment known to slow the progress of Aids.
”People should be warned about the side effects of ARVs” one sign read, while another said ”Manto Thumbs Up 4 Good Work”.
Tshabalala-Msimang has been criticised by Aids-activist groups who blame her for what they say is South Africa’s dangerously slow response to an HIV/Aids epidemic that infects more than five million of the country’s 45-million people.
Tshabalala-Msimang has drawn particular heat for advocating natural remedies, including garlic, olive oil and beetroot and questioning the central role of ARVs in Aids programmes.
South Africa’s Aids strategy was a focus of this year’s global Aids conference in Toronto, where United Nations officials slammed the government for policies that one senior official described as ”worthy of the lunatic fringe”.
In September, President Thabo Mbeki effectively sidelined the controversial Tshabalala-Msimang by handing the management of government’s Aids policy to Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
But the feisty health minister recently retaliated, saying in a letter to members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) she was not giving up the battle.
”Nutrition is critical in prolonging progression from HIV infection to [the] development of Aids-defining conditions … others chose to interpret this simple and straightforward statement as suggesting that nutrition might be an alternative to treatment. It is not,” she wrote. — Reuters, Sapa