This is great news.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34220909/ns/health-aids/
updated 9:42 a.m. ET, Tues., Dec . 1, 2009
PRETORIA, South Africa - South Africa will treat all HIV-positive babies and expand testing, the president announced Tuesday, a dramatic and eagerly awaited shift in a country that has more people living with HIV than any other.
President Jacob Zuma's speech on World AIDS Day was viewed as a definitive turning point for a nation where the previous administration distrusted drugs developed to keep AIDS patients alive and instead promoted garlic treatments. One Harvard study said that resulted in more than 300,000 premature deaths.
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On Tuesday, in response to a plea from Zuma, the United States announced it was giving South Africa $120 million over the next two years for AIDS treatment drugs.
Zuma said in a speech broadcast across South Africa on state radio and television that the new policy changes would take effect in April.
"It means that people will live longer and more fulfilling lives," he said.
South Africa, a nation of about 50 million, has an estimated 5.7 million people infected with HIV.
The new steps include treatment for all HIV-positive children under 1 year old, and earlier treatment for patients infected with both the virus that causes AIDS and tuberculosis, and for women who are pregnant and HIV-positive.
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The health minister under Zuma's predecessor distrusted drugs developed to keep AIDS patients alive, instead promoting garlic treatments. Zuma's government has set a target of getting 80 percent of those who need AIDS drugs on them by 2011.
A Harvard study of the years under President Thabo Mbeki, who questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, concluded that more than 300,000 premature deaths in South Africa could have been prevented had officials here acted sooner to provide drug treatments to AIDS patients and to prevent pregnant women with HIV from passing the virus to their children.
After Zuma won a power struggle within the governing African National Congress, the party forced Mbeki to step down late last year after almost a decade as president. Zuma took over after elections in April.
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Mbeki reminds me of the global warming deniers. They tell me they have a right to their beliefs. True. And they have a right to believe the world is made of green cheese. But if they choose to reject overwhelming scientific findings, because it is more comfortable and doesn't ask anything of them, and vote and live accordingly, with the result that the environment is devastated for the rest of us, with many, many people dying as a result, how is that anything but evil? Mbeki might not fit in that category. I don't know his background. And there might be sub-cultures in this country, and also people of limited intelligence, who just are not capable of understanding science and logic. But my experience with deniers is that they choose their beliefs for their own comfort and convenience. And of course, some for their short-term monetary profits.
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