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Home  S.Africa health minister vows to make AIDS priority |
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S.Africa health minister vows to make AIDS priority
By Rebecca Harrison
PRETORIA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - South Africa's new health minister Barbara Hogan vowed on Thursday to make AIDS a top priority, after years of controversy over her predecessor's unconventional support for treatments like beetroot and garlic.
Hogan replaced Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who was removed from her post when President Kgalema Motlanthe formed a new cabinet last week after Thabo Mbeki resigned as head of state.
Africa's biggest economy faces one of the world's heaviest HIV caseloads, but AIDS activists have accused the government of dragging its feet while the disease ravages millions.
Hogan said awareness about HIV and AIDS was improving among young South Africans, but "persistent and consistent work and political leadership" was needed to get the message across about prevention and treatment.
"We regard HIV/AIDS as one of the most serious health challenges facing this country," Hogan told a news conference in Pretoria.
In South Africa an estimated 500,000 people are infected each year. About 1,000 die of AIDS-related illnesses every day.
Dubbed Dr Beetroot for her promotion of beetroot, garlic and other foods as frontline treatments for HIV/AIDS, Tshabalala-Msimang was accused by scientists and grassroots activists of being in denial about the disease.
DRUGS
Hogan, whose appointment was welcomed by AIDS activists, said she would press for more funds to roll out life-prolonging anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to as many people as possible.
Mbeki drew sharp criticism shortly after coming to power in 1999, when he questioned accepted AIDS science and failed to make ARVs widely available.
Hogan said there was no need for a fundamental shift in policy, as a programme was launched last year aiming to give 80 percent of HIV-positive people access to ARVs by 2011.
She stopped short of directly criticising her predecessor, who also accused big drug companies of exploiting Africans, but promised to take a less confrontational approach and to avoid "political games".
Her voice trembling with emotion, Hogan told journalists about an HIV-positive young man who guards cars outside her apartment in Cape Town and who came close to death before ARVs rapidly improved his health.
"I think we underestimate the heroism of people who live with HIV," Hogan said, adding she was grateful for the chance to help them.
She said she also aimed to tackle high rates of tuberculosis and improve the quality of health services. Some patients wait months for treatment in dilapidated clinics and hospitals.
Jailed in the early 1980s for involvement with the then-banned African National Congress, Hogan was released in 1990 and worked on restructuring the party. She later served as head of parliament's finance committee. (Editing by Andrew Roche)
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