World Must "Act Aggressively" To Fight AIDS, New York Times Columnist Says

It is "inexcusable" that South Africa, which has the "best medical infrastructure in Africa," should have the most HIV-positive people of any country in the world and that in the year 2003 "they should die untreated," New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes in his column. South African President Thabo Mbeki's "disgraceful policy" of "know-nothing obstructionism has killed incomparably more South Africans than any apartheid leader ever did ... [y]et the response in America and Europe, as in Africa itself, has been tepid," Kristof says. In addition, people in the United States think of AIDS "simply as an epidemic," although the epidemic is actually a "moral challenge to the world, one we are failing," Kristof says. Botswana, which is "ground zero" in the epidemic, has a treatment program that "shows that millions of lives can be saved if only we act aggressively," Kristof says, concluding, "Which simply raises the question: Why aren't we?" (Kristof, New York Times, 10/1).

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