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Govt lashed about Aids policy
23/07/2004 16:31 - (SA)
Cape Town - The African National Congress government continues to "delay and distract" serious efforts to fight Aids in South Africa, said Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon on Friday.
He said if South Africa's former apartheid regime had presided over five million HIV infections and one million Aids deaths, "the world would have been well justified in adding the pandemic to the long list of its abuses".
In his weekly letter on his party's SA Today website, Leon warned the incidence of Aids and HIV meant the country faced an "enormous humanitarian catastrophe".
"This month, the United Nations reported that average life expectancy in South Africa had dipped below 50.
"In three years, the HIV/Aids pandemic has caused South Africa's rank on the UN Human Development Index to drop 25 places, from 94 to 119."
He said government "vigorously contested" these figures.
A lesson to take to heart
At the recent Aids conference in Bangkok, UNAids executive director Peter Piot had warned that "one of the main lessons of the past 20 years (is) that with Aids we never gain time when we wait for action, when we are indecisive, when we are divided, when we neglect rights, when we replace science by 'feel good' projects".
"That is a lesson the South African government should take to heart," Leon said.
Across Africa, the Aids pandemic was wreaking havoc on communities and on the economy.
However, some countries were starting to rise to the challenge.
"Countries such as Uganda have led the way by encouraging its government officials, right up to the president himself, to speak out openly and forcefully about HIV/Aids.
"Botswana has followed suit by encouraging senior officials to discuss HIV/Aids in all their major public addresses.
"South Africa's leaders should do the same. By speaking openly about the disease, they will help break the stigma that surrounds it."
Leon said that in Sub-Saharan Africa, 57% of those infected with HIV were women.
"In South Africa, with Women's Day only two weeks away, it is worth asking whether we are doing enough to educate women about HIV/Aids, and to defend them against violence and abuse.
'Time for South Africa to wake up'
Leon said it was well past time for the South African government to change its attitude towards HIV/Aids, and particularly towards women, who were taking the greater part of the burden of the disease.
"We must simply, as UN development programme administrator Mark Malloch Brown challenged us last week, 'fix the Aids problem'.
"How sad... that a government that can justifiably claim to have brought political liberation to South Africa, should now delay and distract serious efforts to fight the disease that is placing the dream of a better life beyond reach for millions of people.
"It is time for South Africa to wake up and to do what is necessary to rescue our future from the terrible burden of this pandemic," said Leon.
- SAPA
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