South Africa: 336,000 Dead of AIDS this year*

The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; 12:53 PM

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- More than a third of a million South Africans
have died of AIDS over the past year, the head of the country's Medical
Research Council said Tuesday.

There are now an estimated 5.54 million HIV-positive South Africans, or
about 11.6 percent of the country's population, and the highest country
total in the world.

"Current data ... estimates that round about the midpoint of 2006,
something like 336,000 deaths in the preceding 12 months were AIDS
related," council president Prof. Anthony Mbewu told a parliamentary
committee.

But he said there was a reluctance among South African doctors _ who
certified about 80 percent of deaths in the country _ to write HIV or
AIDS on a death certificate because of the stigma associated with disease.

Mbewu said about 25 percent of women aged 20-24 were HIV-positive,
compared to about 10 percent of men in that age group.

The council "takes this deadly epidemic very seriously. Not only is it
causing untold death and suffering to South Africans, it also threatens
to reverse many of the developmental gains we have made, particularly
since 1994," he was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.

The government has been increasingly criticized over its handling of the
AIDS crisis, with many calling for Health Minister Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang to resign.

Tshabalala-Msimang repeatedly has voiced doubts about the safety and
efficacy of antiretroviral drugs, and instead has promoted foods such as
garlic, lemon and beetroot as remedies.

The South African Medical Association, which represents doctors, on
Tuesday called for an end to the "misrepresentation on treatment of AIDS."

"Antiretroviral (ARV) medication is the only treatment that is
scientifically proven to prolong the lives of people with AIDS. There is
overwhelming and conclusive evidence from local and international
clinical trials to support the fact that ARVs improve and indefinitely
prolong the lives of patients with AIDS," association chairman Kgosi
Letlape said.

"The minister's emphasis of the exaggerated value of nutrition as a
preferential means to manage and treat AIDS is confusing a vulnerable
public," Letlape said in a statement.

The Health Ministry rejected the criticism, saying its treatment and
prevention plan was "comprehensive," with antiretroviral medicines now
being provided free of charge in about 230 public health facilities.