AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Wed, 20 Feb 2002

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Wed, 20 Feb 2002
-----------------------------------------------

* USAID Announces CORE Initiative Grants at 'Prescription for Hope' 
  Conference
* Rifts Grow in South Africa's African National Congress as Provin-
  cial Leaders Break Rank to Offer Treatment
* United Kingdom, Five African Nations Launch Five-Year Microbicide 
  Development Program


--
USAID Announces CORE Initiative Grants at 'Prescription for Hope' 
Conference

Yesterday at the "Prescription for Hope" conference in Washington, 
D.C., sponsored by Samaritan's Purse, a Christian relief group headed 
by Rev. Franklin Graham, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios announced 
the recipients of 29 Communities Responding to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic 
(CORE) Initiative grants, according to an agency release. CORE 
grants, which were first announced last year on World AIDS Day, pro-
vide small, community-based organizations with funding for HIV pre-
vention work and for the care of people with HIV/AIDS and their fami-
lies. The 29 grants, which went mostly to groups working in African 
nations, are for less than $5,000 each. Speaking yesterday, Natsios 
said, "These small grants can go a long way toward helping local com-
munities in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The war on AIDS will be a 
long and arduous one, but with the help of people and [faith-based] 
organizations ... it is a war that we ultimately will win." According 
to USAID, community and faith-based groups "will be essential part-
ners in providing voluntary [HIV] counseling and testing, home care, 
clinical services and delivering advanced treatment," as the agency 
expands its HIV/AIDS mission. The agency added that the "values and 
activities promoted by faith-based groups such as promoting absti-
nence, committed relationships based on fidelity and supporting edu-
cational programs are meaningful contributions in the fight against" 
the disease. USAID will spend $435 million on HIV/AIDS efforts this 
year (USAID release, 2/19). A list of grant recipients is available 
online. 

'Tidal Wave' of AIDS

Yesterday at the "Prescription for Hope" Conference, which was organ-
ized to mobilize Christian-based groups in the fight against 
HIV/AIDS, Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, called AIDS a 
"tidal wave" that is "going to consume Africa." He added that the 
disease will also "hit the shores of this country in a big way" if 
further action is not taken. He said he organized the conference be-
cause the church should "take a leadership role and get the word out" 
on HIV/AIDS. Ken Isaacs of Samaritan's Purse noted that the confer-
ence was a "big risk" for the group because they "didn't know how 
America would respond. We didn't know what the response would be in 
the church community." The conference will continue throughout the 
week (Sternberg, USA Today, 2/20). 


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Rifts Grow in South Africa's African National Congress as Provincial 
Leaders Break Rank to Offer Treatment

Mounting pressure to take action on AIDS, especially mother-to-child 
HIV transmission, is causing rifts within South Africa's ruling Afri-
can National Congress, the Washington Post reports. Monday's an-
nouncement by Gauteng province Premier Mbhazima Shilowa, an ANC mem-
ber, that his government would begin distributing the antiretroviral 
drug nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women in defiance of na-
tional policy was "the surest sign yet that South Africa is no longer 
the euphoric country that toppled white-minority rule eight years 
ago," the Post reports. Abby Makoe, a South African newspaper colum-
nist, said Shilowa's defiance is "huge" in political terms. "No one 
has ever seen such a well-regarded, high-ranking ANC member go 
against the ANC in such a public way," she explained, noting that al-
though the ANC, Africa's oldest black liberation group, is "outwardly 
a democratic institution," internally, the group is socialist. 
"[T]his is a defining political moment for the country as a whole," 
she said, adding, "The ground has shifted." According to observers, 
Shilowa's willingness to break from the party ranks and offer nevi-
rapine -- a move only previously undertaken in provinces controlled 
by opposition parties -- "reflects the maturation" of the country's 
democracy. "The ANC is moving into the era of modern politics and be-
coming less of a social movement. The political debate is getting 
sharper and people are beginning to claim space that has been domi-
nated by a single political party," Ebrahim Fakir, a senior re-
searcher at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, said. 

Dissatisfaction With Mbeki's AIDS Policy

That debate has largely been spurred by dissatisfaction with Presi-
dent Thabo Mbeki's leadership on HIV/AIDS. Mbeki, who has publicly 
questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS and suggested that 
poverty plays a larger role in the disease, has only a 31% approval 
rating, according to a poll released last year. Nathan Geffen, a 
spokesperson for the Treatment Action Campaign, which sued the na-
tional government last year and won a decision -- currently being ap-
pealed by the government -- requiring the government to provide nevi-
rapine to all pregnant HIV-positive women seeking care at public hos-
pitals, explained, "A lot of us believe that Mbeki is right to raise 
the issue of poverty in relation to the spread of AIDS. Poverty plays 
a very real role in the pandemic. The problem is that when it comes 
down to poverty and AIDS, Mbeki is not doing enough to address either 
issue" (Jeter, Washington Post, 2/20). TAC Chair Zackie Achmat added, 
"The position of the ANC is unsustainable for many people. On the 
ground the social pressure is so enormous that they know what they 
need to do" (Murphy, Baltimore Sun, 2/20). The dissatisfaction has 
also appeared to spread to former President and ANC leader Nelson 
Mandela. On Sunday he said that the government needed to "not con-
tinue debating, to be arguing when people are dying," leading some 
observers to think he was disenchanted with Mbeki's leadership. How-
ever, yesterday Mandela told 702 Radio that speculation about any 
rift between the two leaders was "totally untrue." He said that he 
was "not criticizing the government," but was "talking about the de-
bate and calling upon everybody to try and agree on how AIDS should 
be treated." He added, "The only weakness is that [the ANC has] not 
communicated sufficiently. If they did, I'm sure many people would 
appreciate why they are so cautious about this matter" (Reuters, 
2/19).

Backing Down?

The ANC and Mbeki have shown signs of softening their stance on AIDS, 
but any sense of retreat is being "carefully packaged," Steven Fried-
man, director of the Center for Policy Studies in South Africa, said. 
ANC officials yesterday released a statement saying that they had 
conferred and "reached a common understanding on AIDS and 'reaffirmed 
the correctness of the positions taken by both the ANC and govern-
ment.'" However, any changes "do not necessarily reflect a shift in 
the thinking of Mbeki," Friedman said, explaining, "He's got himself 
in a corner. It's making his retreat a lot more difficult" (Baltimore 
Sun, 2/20).


--
United Kingdom, Five African Nations Launch Five-Year Microbicide De-
velopment Program

The United Kingdom has teamed up with five African nations to launch 
a five-year microbicide development project, Reuters reports. The 
United Kingdom, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon and Zambia 
will work together on the $23 million project, which will focus on 
developing an effective microbicide, a substance such as a cream or 
gel that is applied vaginally or rectally to help prevent the trans-
mission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. "We need to 
increase the range of products available that would give women the 
ability to protect themselves from HIV in ways that they can control. 
An effective microbicide, which must be affordable in poor countries, 
would be immensely useful," Clare Short, U.K. secretary of state for 
international development, said (Reuters, 2/19). Scientists say that 
microbicides could help reduce HIV transmission rates in countries in 
which women may not have as much control over their partners' use of 
condoms. Microbicide research in the United Kingdom will be conducted 
by the Medical Research Council and the Imperial College Faculty of 
Medicine (BBC News, 2/19). The Medical Research Council is currently 
planning large clinical trials of two microbicide gels (Reuters, 
2/19).

--
The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, 
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National 
Journal Group Inc. © 2002 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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