Activists Say South African Health Minister Hampering AIDS Fight

Today in Johannesburg, a chorus of nongovernmental organizations said Health Minister Tshabalala-Msimang is blocking anti-AIDS efforts and thus furthering the nation's HIV crisis. The recent firing of the deputy health minister credited with helping to create the nation's ambitious five-year AIDS plan raises fears that the government has returned to its previous AIDS denialist stance, the advocates said.

"We fear that denialism about the scale and needs of the AIDS crisis, as well as the crisis in the public health system more broadly, is once again ascendant in the health ministry," said a letter from activists. The communication was addressed to Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and carried signatures representing the Treatment Action Campaign, the South African Council of Churches, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

"We hoped that government would put the lives of our people before misplaced loyalty. Instead, our people continue to die and become infected because of lack of leadership and deliberate obstruction from Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her director general Thami Mseleku," the letter said.

Greeted with much fanfare, South Africa's AIDS plan was written under the leadership of Mlambo-Ngcuka, who chairs the National AIDS Council, and Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge while Tshabalala-Msimang was sidelined by a liver transplant. The two health ministry leaders clashed after Tshabalala-Msimang returned to work, and President Thabo Mbeki fired Madlala-Routledge on Aug. 8. Previously, Mbeki had repeatedly questioned whether HIV in fact causes AIDS.

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