SOUTH AFRICA: Government in denial about TB and AIDS

JOHANNESBURG, 23 Feb 2005 (PLUSNEWS) - The AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), has slammed the South African health department for denying that a rise in tuberculosis (TB) deaths could be attributed to HIV/AIDS.

Thami Mseleku, the director general of health, maintained that the growing TB epidemic was not necessarily linked to HIV, despite Statistics SA saying new data provided "indirect evidence that HIV/AIDS is raising the mortality levels of prime-aged adults, in that AIDS related diseases are on the increase".

A local newspaper, the Cape Times, quoted TAC spokesman Nathan Geffen as saying: "This [denial] is happening despite astonishing evidence. And it gets worse than that - we are seeing a destructive response to Stats SA by a number of people in government. Instead of acknowledging, we are seeing denial after denial by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the director general."

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