An unseemly ”fit of pique” was how Aids activists in South Africa were on Wednesday describing the decision by controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to boycott an Aids conference in Durban this week over a perceived snub.
Tshabalala-Msimang, who has drawn worldwide scorn for advocating the consumption of garlic, beetroot, olive oil and the African potato to treat the symptoms of HIV/Aids, had been due to address Wednesday’s plenary session of the third National Aids Conference.
At previous conferences she has addressed the opening session.
Her absence was announced by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the opening of the conference Tuesday evening.
Mlambo-Ngcuka admonished the conference organisers, saying her colleague’s stayaway was ”because of the place you [the conference organisers] put her on the programme”.
The role reserved for Tshabalala-Msimang at the conference did not do justice to her efforts on HIV/Aids, the deputy president complained to SAfm radio.
The spat threatens to overshadow the conference, which began in a spirit of optimism over the new-found unity among the government, healthcare professionals and the Aids lobby on how to tackle the disease that kills 1 000 people each day in South Africa.
Tensions between the minister, dubbed Dr Beetroot over her penchant for promoting the benefits of vegetable remedies for HIV/Aids patients, and AIDS activists are nothing new.
Her initial refusal to provide antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to Aids patients prompted a drawn-out court battle with lobbyists that, in the end, saw the minister forced in 2004 to make treatment available through the state health system.
The tensions culminated at the International Aids Conference in Canada last year. Activists vandalised her health department’s exhibition stand that carried a display of the infamous vegetable cures and 60 international health experts called for her resignation, describing her as ””an embarrassment to the South African government”.
Fresh calls for her resignation were issued when she took ill late last year with a lung infection and again with liver disease this year, but the minister has refused to budge.
Instead, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe was named acting health minister in her place.
During her absence two more pragmatic politicians — Mlambo-Ngcuka and Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge — set out to restore damaged relations with the Aids lobby and chart a new five-year plan to tackle the disease.
The resulting National Strategic Plan for HIV/Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections, unveiled earlier this year, underscored the sea change in government policy. The plan contains bold moves to provide ARV treatment to at least 80% of HIV-positive people and to halve the number of new HIV infections by 2011.
Speakers at the opening session of the 4 000-strong Durban conference on Tuesday welcomed the new spirit of cooperation as conducive to helping stem the course of the epidemic.
South Africa is now poised to the lead the continent in its response to the pandemic, United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/Aids director Peter Piot praised.
On Wednesday, Aids activists and the government accused each other of endangering the spirit of the conference.
Now is ”not the time” for a ”fit of pique” on the health minister’s part, Mark Heywood, deputy chairperson of the South African National Aids Council, said in a radio interview.
Conference organisers had rushed to include the minister in the programme when they learned she was due to return to her post this week, he said.
The government has announced the return to work, slated for Thursday, of Tshabalala-Msimang.
South Africa has 5,5-million cases of HIV infection, the second-largest number after India. The third South African National Aids Conference is meeting to discuss ways of achieving the goals set out in the National Strategic Plan.
Not snubbed
Tshabalala-Msimang was not snubbed by conference, the conference organisers insisted on Wednesday.
Dira Sengwe, the official organisers of the third South African Aids Conference, said it ”strongly refutes” allegations that Tshabalala-Msimang was slighted because she was on the programme in a panel discussion rather than as an individual speaker.
”The committee confirmed that Dr Tshabalala-Msimang had been invited repeatedly to take part officially at the opening of the conference on Tuesday evening,” said Dira Sengwe chairperson Professor Jerry Coovadia.
”The committee was particularly pleased that the Deputy President Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka formally opened the conference at the plenary.”
Coovadia said Tshabalala-Msimang was give a ”prominent speaker slot” in Wednesday’s plenary session.
”Plenaries are designed to feature the most important and most distinguished speakers of the conference — a fact attested to by the list of such plenary speakers in the official conference programme distributed to all delegates,” said Coovadia. — Sapa-dpa