The importance of the imminent World Health Organisation annual conference on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, to be held in South Africa, cannot be overestimated. But it cannot, of itself, do much to ameliorate the appalling conditions created by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa where, in many States, at least one quarter of the population is now estimated to be suffering from the fatal disease and where the incidence of new cases is by far the highest in the world - more than four fifths of all new cases globally. Many thousands of Africans are dying from AIDS every week and very few people seem moved to do anything about it.
Worse, in many African states, as if the problem was too vast even to contemplate, governments appear to be in a state of denial, hoping that the problem will somehow go away when, in reality, it is growing with increasing speed and devastation. In South Africa itself, the President, Mr Mbeki, has been courting the opinions of those who dispute the very existence of AIDS and how it is to be treated. This ill-informed dalliance resulted recently in 5,000 of the world's real experts on the disease publishing a refutation of the notions to which Mr Mbeki appeared to be listening.
In many sub-Saharan countries there are well-meaning traditional herbalists and witch-doctors peddling false cures and raising false hopes. There are also some unscrupulous profiteers (not all of them African) making money on the basis of sick people's desperation by claiming therapeutic successes which don't exist and selling these bogus therapies. And not even the offer by several major drug companies to provide to sub-Saharan states those therapies which have been shown to be at least partially effective in Northern and Western countries for a fraction of their cost has made any difference because even the reduced costs are too great to be affordable in most of the countries concerned, including South Africa itself, according to spokespersons for the health services there.
AIDS conferences in Africa in the past have not, despite earnest invitations, been attended by many political leaders. Pious sentiments have been voiced in many developed countries about the parlous condition of Africa as a result of AIDS, but such sentiments fall far short of any serious effort to provide resources which might have any hope of doing anything to reduce the lethal epidemic which is far more than decimating populations.
Nobody can pretend that they don't know what is happening in Africa: the ghastly statistics have been available for years past and worsen annually. There have been many excellent radio and television documentaries illustrating the problem in truthful and harrowing terms. Declan Walsh's article in today's editions of this newspaper gives a graphic account of the current situation in Zimbabwe. Fergal Keane's Panorama programme on the BBC in April should have brought tears to the stoniest eye.
The WHO conference should provide more statistical and medical information in South Africa next week. But will anyone in Africa listen to it or learn from it? Will anyone in Europe, North America, Oceania or elsewhere provide the resources required to deal with it? Not to judge by the depressing record so far.