Leaders Can Be Blamed for Aids Inaction
August 22, 2006
The Reporter / Mmegi (Gaborone, Botswana), by Thato Chwaane
South African government was in the spotlight on Friday when it was described as the unkindest of all when it comes to treatment, a United Nations special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, said at the end of the 16th International AIDS conference in
"It is the only country in Africa, amongst all the countries I have traversed in the last years, whose government is still obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out treatment," adding "it is the only country in Africa whose government continues to propound theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of compassionate state," he said.
Lewis said that with between 600 and 800 people a day dying of AIDS in
Lewis said although some may say as a UN official, he has no right to say that about a member state - he said he sees as an envoy on AIDS in
In an earlier statement by the co-chair of the conference, Mark Wainberg, said in
Weinberg termed this as nonsense. He rhetorically asked how many additional millions of HIV cases are attributable to the failure of certain world leaders to directly and honestly address issues of HIV/AIDS with their people. The conference whose theme was 'time to deliver' attracted over 24 000 people from around the world.
Lewis said that it was indeed time to deliver and continue to roll out treatment.
He said circumcision as a preventative intervention and abstinence are the programmes that do not work. "Ideological rigidity almost never works when applied to the human condition," Lewis said.
He said so few HIV positive pregnant women have access to Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission and that it was inexcusable that in Africa and other parts of developing the world, they continue to use single dose Nevirapine rather than the full triple therapy as in western countries like Canada. He said this means hundreds of thousands of babies continue to be born with HIV.
"I ask, what kind of world do we live in, where the life of an African or Asian child is worth so much less than the life of a Canadian?" he questioned. Lewis also noted that the growing embrace of routine testing and counselling, with an option to protect human rights is the appropriate emerging consensus. He called for major social welfare programmes that will recognise grandmothers, as caregivers, and offer the guarantee of sustainable incomes - from food to school fees to income generation.
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