South African Minister at centre of policy row

JOHANNESBURG – South African President Thabo Mbeki was urged to axe his health minister yesterday after she took a beating over the government’s AIDS policies at a global conference on the pandemic.

Leading newspapers called on Mbeki to fire Manto Tshabalala-Msimang after the United Nations’ special envoy on AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, severely criticised Pretoria for its response to the pandemic affecting some 5,5 million of the country’s 47 million citizens. Lewis, in a speech at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, slated South Africa’s AIDS policies as “wrong, immoral (and) indefensible”, saying they were “theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state”.South Africa amazed conference delegates with its exhibition stall which displayed beetroot, garlic and lemons alongside containers of anti-AIDS medicines.Tshabalala-Msimang advocates the diet to fight HIV, an approach that scientists say is worthless and that campaigners say can delude HIV-infected poor people into believing there is a quick, cheap fix for the disease.Mbeki himself in the past has questioned whether AIDS is caused by HIV.”Tshabalala-Msimang has become a comic figure who comes across as a clown, if her behaviour in Toronto is anything to go by,” the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times said in an editorial.”For how long must South Africans suffer the embarrassment of a senior cabinet minister who does not appear to take her work seriously? It is now time Mbeki took action against Tshabalala-Msimang.”City Press, which has a mainly black readership, said the minister wasted a chance to silence critics and prove South Africa was a world leader in AIDS treatment.”Tshabalala-Msimang squandered a golden opportunity.She reduced South Africa to an international joke,” writes columnist Khathu Mamaila.The Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport said: “If the fight against AIDS was a matter of earnest for Mbeki, he would fire Tshabalala-Msimang without delay.”South Africa has the highest AIDS tally in the world after India and the UN’s AIDS agency estimates that nearly 19 per cent of the population aged 15 to 49 are living with the disease.The government responded angrily over the weekend, saying it rejected “with contempt the statement made by Stephen Lewis with regard to the response of the South African government to the challenge of HIV and AIDS”.”Lewis should tell the world which other developing country has invested resources comparable to South Africa in implementing HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment programmes,” said Health Ministry spokesman Sibani Mngadi.South Africa has tripled the budget allocation for HIV and AIDS over the last four years to R3,5 billion, he said.It also distributes more than 340 million male condoms and close to three million female condoms a year for free, Mngadi added.Meanwhile, South Africa’s main anti-AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), on Saturday said it had invited Lewis to visit the country.”We invited the UN special envoy.We invited him to come to South Africa so that we can show him how hard it really is,” TAC president and Nobel prize nominee Zachie Achmat said.Nampa-AFPLewis, in a speech at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, slated South Africa’s AIDS policies as “wrong, immoral (and) indefensible”, saying they were “theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state”.South Africa amazed conference delegates with its exhibition stall which displayed beetroot, garlic and lemons alongside containers of anti-AIDS medicines.Tshabalala-Msimang advocates the diet to fight HIV, an approach that scientists say is worthless and that campaigners say can delude HIV-infected poor people into believing there is a quick, cheap fix for the disease.Mbeki himself in the past has questioned whether AIDS is caused by HIV.”Tshabalala-Msimang has become a comic figure who comes across as a clown, if her behaviour in Toronto is anything to go by,” the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times said in an editorial.”For how long must South Africans suffer the embarrassment of a senior cabinet minister who does not appear to take her work seriously? It is now time Mbeki took action against Tshabalala-Msimang.”City Press, which has a mainly black readership, said the minister wasted a chance to silence critics and prove South Africa was a world leader in AIDS treatment.”Tshabalala-Msimang squandered a golden opportunity.She reduced South Africa to an international joke,” writes columnist Khathu Mamaila.The Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport said: “If the fight against AIDS was a matter of earnest for Mbeki, he would fire Tshabalala-Msimang without delay.”South Africa has the highest AIDS tally in the world after India and the UN’s AIDS agency estimates that nearly 19 per cent of the population aged 15 to 49 are living with the disease.The government responded angrily over the weekend, saying it rejected “with contempt the statement made by Stephen Lewis with regard to the response of the South African government to the challenge of HIV and AIDS”.”Lewis should tell the world which other developing country has invested resources comparable to South Africa in implementing HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment programmes,” said Health Ministry spokesman Sibani Mngadi.South Africa has tripled the budget allocation for HIV and AIDS over the last four years to R3,5 billion, he said.It also distributes more than 340 million male condoms and close to three million female condoms a year for free, Mngadi added.Meanwhile, South Africa’s main anti-AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), on Saturday said it had invited Lewis to visit the country.”We invited the UN special envoy.We invited him to come to South Africa so that we can show him how hard it really is,” TAC president and Nobel prize nominee Zachie Achmat said.Nampa-AFP