Summit to shape government HIV/AIDS policy

Scientists and academics are meeting with government this week in a groundbreaking HIV/AIDS summit expected to help shape state policy.

The two day summit in Johannesburg is to be followed by another meeting to discuss plans for universal access to antiretroviral drugs. This is the first time that all these parties have met in a dedicated forum to review scientific issues relating to HIV/AIDS in the country.

The state's HIV/AIDS policy has been marked by controversy, with government saying antiretroviral drugs were toxic and questioning the link between HIV and AIDS. The country's medical scientists and activists have frequently found themselves at odds with the government's stance.

Local newspaper reports have hailed the meeting as the end of a long-standing feud between the government, scientists and AIDS activists.

But leading AIDS lobby group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on Tuesday distanced itself from these reports and said the group would not attend the summit.

TAC chairman Zackie Achmat told PlusNews that only one of its representatives had been permitted to attend but the group decided not to take up the invitation.

"We decided to let the department get on with it and hope it will be a productive meeting," he said. The group hoped the outcome of the meeting would not be as "messy" as the process leading up to it, he added.

Dr Nono Simelela, head of the department of health's HIV/AIDS unit was reported by The Star newspaper, as saying that many issues, such as management and access to antiretrovirals, would be discussed at the summit. "I am tired of having to try to justify what we are doing and having the government portrayed in a negative light.

"The media should not try to pre-empt the summit but rather wait to see what comes out of it," she was quoted as saying.