NEWS
Thabo Mbeki and AIDS, New York Times, November 4, 2001

Thabo Mbeki's views on AIDS have drawn so much criticism that he has lately kept them to himself. Last month, however, the South African president gave two speeches that showed he remains badly misinformed about a virus that now infects one in four adult South Africans and will kill between five and seven million over the next decade, the vast majority of them poor black people. Mr. Mbeki downplayed the problem, exaggerated the toxicity of antiretroviral drugs and suggested that advocates for treating the disease are racist.

South Africa, with a medical infrastructure capable of providing antiretrovirals, should be a global leader in AIDS treatment. Yet even though thousands of affluent South Africans buy these drugs, the government has done nothing to make them available to the poor. It has not accepted international offers of free or low-cost medication and runs only a few programs to cut mother-to-child transmission. Meanwhile, Mr. Mbeki has appointed scientists to government panels who do not believe that H.I.V. causes AIDS. In August, he used old statistics to argue that AIDS is only the 12th-leading killer in South Africa - it is actually No. 1 - and asked health officials to reassess the budget accordingly.

It is hard to understand how Mr. Mbeki, a reformer in many other other ways, can be so irresponsible about AIDS. His misunderstanding seems to be rooted in a defensiveness about race. In one speech, he said that those advocating AIDS treatment viewed black people as "germ carriers and human beings of a lower order." Many politicians in Mr. Mbeki's African National Congress disagree with him. But virtually none speak out publicly, a testament to Mr. Mbeki's unhealthy level of control. Even Nelson Mandela seems reluctant to challenge him on this issue.

Mr. Mbeki came to politics after a lifetime of fighting white rule in South Africa. Though it is hard to imagine a more malignant evil than apartheid, AIDS has already taken more South African lives. If Mr. Mbeki does not begin to address the crisis, millions more deaths will follow.

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