An estimated 336,000 South Africans died of AIDS-related causes from mid-2005 to mid-2006, the president of the nation's Medical Research Council told a parliamentary committee Tuesday.

"Current data ... estimate that round about the midpoint of 2006, something like 336,000 deaths in the preceding 12 months were AIDS-related," Prof. Anthony Mbewu testified. However, because of disease stigma, doctors who write 80 percent of death certificates are reluctant to list HIV/AIDS as the cause. About 25 percent of females ages 20-24 have HIV, compared to 10 percent of age-matched males, said Mbewu.

The council "takes this deadly epidemic very seriously," the South African Press Association quoted Mbewu as saying. "Not only is it causing untold death and suffering to South Africans, it also threatens to reverse many of the developmental gains we have made, particularly since 1994," the year the apartheid system collapsed.

Also on Tuesday, the South African Medical Association (SAMA) asked the government to end its "misrepresentation on treatment of AIDS." Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang downplays antiretroviral (ARV) treatment as toxic, while strongly advocating dietary nutrients for AIDS.

"ARV medication is the only treatment that is scientifically proven to prolong the lives of people with AIDS," SAMA Chairperson Kgosi Letlape said in a statement. "There is overwhelming and conclusive evidence from local and international clinical trials to support the fact that ARVs improve and indefinitely prolong the lives of patients with AIDS. The minister's emphasis of the exaggerated value of nutrition as a preferential means to manage and treat AIDS is confusing a vulnerable public."

The Health Ministry defended its treatment and prevention plan as "comprehensive," with free ARVs distributed at 230 public health facilities.

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