SOUTH AFRICA: A South African Aids campaigner has called on world leaders to speak out against the government of Thabo Mbeki, which, he claims, is responsible for the continuing but unnecessary devastation wreaked in his country by Aids.
Eight hundred people die from Aids in South Africa every day, said Mark Heywood, of the Aids Law Project at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Treatment Action Campaign (Tac).
"We're treating only 17 per cent of people with Aids. What is happening in South Africa is a human rights violation that needs leadership from outside of South Africa to address the crisis being created by the South African government."
But, he said at the International Aids Conference in Toronto on Thursday, there was "a terrible silence" from the world.
"Bill Clinton can't get the words out of his mouth to criticise Thabo Mbeki. Kofi Annan can't criticise Thabo Mbeki . . . The long-term consequences for South Africa are enormous.
"This crisis has to be broken somehow. The African Union and the G8 and the EU have to speak out about it. The British government, who are silent on this question, have to find a way to intervene."
South Africa has 200,000 people on antiretroviral drugs for Aids, of whom 130,000 are treated in the public sector. But about 700,000 people with HIV need the drugs and will soon die without them.
Mr Heywood said there had been a lack of government will to roll out the treatment programme, after Mr Mbeki said he did not believe HIV caused Aids.
More recently health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said she had more faith in lemon and garlic to treat Aids than in drugs.
She maintains that good nutrition helps people with Aids and garlic can boost the immune system.
South Africa's exhibit at the conference - featuring displays of garlic and other natural foods along with antiretroviral drugs - was stormed by Tac supporters on Thursday.
"We feel that the display of garlic and lemon is . . . an insult to the South African Aids crisis," Tac general secretary Sipho Mthathi told Toronto's SABC radio.
Health ministry spokesman Sibani Mngadi said the Toronto protesters had attempted to seize the garlic and other foodstuffs from the display, damaging part of the exhibit.
"The minister of health represents government policy," Mr Mngadi said, accusing Tac of being "preoccupied" with antiretroviral drugs.
"There are antiretrovirals displayed there, which is one option that is available to people at a particular level of the progression of HIV and Aids . . . for those people with CD4 counts higher than 200, we are saying that they need to deal with maintaining their health."
Experts generally say that patients should start treatment when their CD4 cell count, a measure of immune system response, drops below 350.
Mr Mbeki and Ms Tshabalala-Msimang have in the past expressed doubts about the efficacy of antiretroviral drugs.
Tac's general secretary said South Africa's official prescription of garlic, beetroot and olive oil as a frontline defence against HIV/Aids was costing lives.
"The health minister has in the country and outside consistently overemphasised her cocktails over what is scientifically tested and well-known medicine," Mr Mthati said.
"We need a health minister who is going to promote scientifically-based medicines . . . and none of these untested alternatives she is supporting actually have any credence."
- (Guardian service, additional reporting by Reuters)