UN WIRE Alert

Monday, April 17, 2000

The Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says boycotting the AIDS 2000 Conference in Durban, South Africa, in July "would be counterproductive" and "deviate attention from the seriousness" of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Some experts threatened to boycott the conference after South Africa

(South African President Thabo Mbeki has asked his health minister to assemble an international panel to examine "everything about AIDS," including the notion that HIV does not cause the disease and whether HIV even exists, New York's Village Voice reports. The announcement has fueled fears that Mbeki does not believe HIV causes AIDS.

The South African Health Ministry has tried to downplay these fears, saying the panel's primary objective is "developing prevention and treatment strategies that are appropriate to the African reality." And the government insists it is proceeding with existing AIDS programs, including research into a vaccine for HIV.

Critics of the panel claim it is part of a dangerous pattern for Mbeki, who delayed making AZT available to pregnant women in order to reduce the number of babies born with the virus and is known to read a great deal of unconventional literature on HIV/AIDS.

Doctors and scientists both in and outside South Africa have expressed shock and dismay at the decision last October to delay the use of AZT. Dr. Ashraf Grimwood, chair of the National AIDS Convention of South Africa, said the decision made him feel that "a very strange plot was afoot."

South African physician Mamphela Ramphele called it "irresponsibility bordering on criminality," while veteran Ugandan doctor Peter Mugyenyi said Mbeki's ideas represent "a highly dangerous and retrogressive step with very serious public health consequences." If the government gives credibility to "this voodoo science," Ramphele adds, "there's a real danger that people might say, 'I don't have to worry about condoms.'" An estimated 12.5% of South Africans are infected with HIV) to include researchers who have doubts that HIV causes AIDS. The president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Seth Berkley, also denounced calls for a boycott (The head of a global group spearheading the search for an HIV vaccine yesterday denounced calls for a boycott of an international AIDS conference to be held in South Africa in July.

Seth Berkley, president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), said that boycotting the XIII International AIDS conference would be irresponsible and wrong, according to Reuters.

"This is not the time to undercut efforts to address developing country issues, particularly because the next two international conferences are scheduled to be held in industrialized countries," Berkley said.

Scientists are considering staying away from the meeting after South Africa announced plans to include researchers who have doubts that HIV causes AIDS on a panel of international experts.

Critics were concerned that the scientists' views would be given credibility if included, and perhaps even slow efforts to stop the spread of AIDS in South Africa. An estimated 10% of the country's 40 million people are HIV-positive.

Berkley said the conference would provide an unparalleled opportunity to share information and shed light on critical questions about the disease, which has claimed 16 million, lives since the early 1980s).

"UNAIDS believes that the fact that this is the first international AIDS conference to take place on the African continent provides an important opportunity to focus attention on the epidemic where its impact is being felt the most by individuals, communities and countries," the agency said in a statement. It also reaffirmed that UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot will attend the conference

South African President Thabo Mbeki yesterday defended his questioning of the link between HIV and AIDS. Over the weekend, he advised the Health Ministry to organize a panel of 20 scientists with disparate views about the link between the virus and the disease.

"The matter is critical," he said in a broadcast interview. "The reason we are doing all of this is to be able to respond correctly to what is reported to be a major catastrophe on the African continent."

World AIDS Conference Chair Hoosen Coovadia urged leaders to attend the conference despite the South African imbroglio saying "it is a meeting of people concerned about HIV/AIDS".