South Africans with Aids and HIV and health workers on Saturday welcomed the turn-around by President Thabo Mbeki's government to allow life-saving anti-retroviral drugs to reach the public.
But there was also anger that the government's delay in accepting the use of the drugs had cost many lives.
Mbeki had come under increasing criticism at home and internationally for failing to deal effectively with the world's highest number of Aids and HIV cases. His government bowed to the pressure for drug treatment saying it intends to draw up a plan by the end of September for the national distribution of anti-retrovirals.
"Government shares the impatience of many South Africans on the need to strengthen the nation's armory in the fight against Aids," the South African cabinet said on Friday after a special meeting to assess the financial costs of a national drug program and to explore treatment options.
South Africa has the largest number of HIV-infected people in the world, nearly five million -- more than 11 per cent of its population of 43.8 million -- according to the UN Aids program.
The figures are more frightening for the 23.7 million people aged 15 to 49, where about 20 per cent are infected. The epidemic has left 660,000 South African children orphaned.
Yet, for years, as the virus has spread, Mbeki and his officials have resisted national programs to provide anti-retrovirals, making him the target of intense criticism in South Africa and the world.
With this weekend's announcement, it appears Mbeki has bowed to that pressure.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has spearheaded demands for universal treatment. The group said it would call off a campaign of civil disobedience and reconsider pending litigation, which includes charges of culpable homicide against two Cabinet Ministers for failing to prevent the deaths of friends and family by refusing universal access to anti-retrovirals.
"We welcome the Cabinet's bold step today, but also remember the anguish, pain and unnecessary loss of lives over the last four years," the TAC stated.
Zachie Achmat, the HIV-positive TAC chairman, stepped up the pressure by refusing to take the drugs himself until the government changed its policies to make them available to all South Africans.
Achmat's health had been failing in the past year and last week he announced "I will take my medicine," in order, he said, to be able to continue battling for treatment for all.
Although he welcomed the government's decision, Achmat said his group "will wait to see the actual operational plan before celebration.
"For all of us living with HIV in South Africa, and our families, this is the first sign of hope," he added.
Although the government has taken a new step, it probably does not indicate a change of heart by Mbeki.
Just last week he wrote in the ANC newsletter of his mistrust of Western experts who urged the use of anti-retroviral drugs.
"We must free ourselves of the `friends' who populate our ranks, originating from the world of the rich, who come dressed in jeans and T-shirts, as advisers and consultants, while we end up as the voice that gives popular legitimacy to decisions we neither made nor intended to make," he wrote.
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS