Patricia Watson, Staff Reporter
DURBAN, South Africa:
FORMER SOUTH African President Nelson Mandela yesterday described the AIDS epidemic as one of the greatest threats humankind has faced.
"Let us not equivocate -- a tragedy of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in Africa," Mr. Mandela said. He was speaking at the closing ceremony of the X111 International AIDS Conference in Durban.
AIDS today is claiming more lives than the sum total of all wars, famines and floods, he told the conference, adding that it was devastating families and communities.
"Business has suffered or will suffer losses of personnel, productivity and profits, economic growth is being undermined and scarce development resources have to be diverted to deal with consequences of the pandemic."
The former president said he was shocked this week to learn that in South Africa, one in two young people will die of AIDS.
"The most frightening thing is that all these infections ... and the attendant human suffering could have been and can be prevented," Mr. Mandela said.
The challenge, he said, was to move from rhetoric to action and action at an unprecedented intensity and scale. "Something must be done as a matter of the greatest urgency."
Mr Mandela was applauded when he called for action to prevent the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to their unborn children.
This was interpreted as a call for the provision of anti-retroviral drugs in public hospitals -- something the South African Government has so far refused to do.
On Thursday, the conference chairman also urged the South African Government to make available drugs that suppress the effects of the HIV virus.
The [South African] government will have to make a decision, said Professor Hoosen Coovadia.
So far, it has refused to make drugs such as AZT available, despite evidence that they can prevent the transmission of the HIV virus from mother to child.
(See related stories in Cleisure 3 and 4).
