Originally posted by the Voice of America. Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America, a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in the public domain. AIDS 2000: Former Chairman Reflects on Landmark Conference Joe DeCapua 17 May 2010 Ten years ago, South Africa hosted the worldâs largest AIDS conference â the first time the event was held in a developing country. The meeting was marked by both hope and controversy and set standards that future such events would strive to meet. Millions of people had died from the disease â most in sub-Saharan Africa - by the time the 13^th International AIDS Conference was held in Durban in July 2000. Anti-retroviral drugs were not readily available on the continent, and fear and ignorance about the disease were widespread. Professor Jerry Coovadia was chairman of the conference â also known as AIDS2000. âMy view and that of many other people,â he says, âis that without exaggerating its impact it certainly is considered one of the landmark AIDS conferences in the world. And that includes those which have been held recently.â Professor Jerry Coovadia Coovadia, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, says the event brought many controversial issues to light. âWhen one looks back at the HIV/AIDS epidemic,â he says, âand the worldâs response to it, it really should be considered as being integral to what AIDS conferences are all about.â The full horror AIDS2000 has been described by many as putting a human face on the epidemic and view it not just from a scientific perspective. âI think itâs more than that,â Coovadia says, âIt brought to bear the full horror and extent and scale of the epidemic in terms of the global size of the problemâ¦. The majority of the cases of the cases of HIV/AIDSâ¦about two-thirds of them are in developing countries and mostly inâ¦Africa.â Ten years ago, there was little access to antiretroviral drugs on the continent. Coovadia says, âIt made the problem really one of exceeding anguish and a great reflection of the extent of poverty, which determined availability of health resources throughout the world.â Opening day Addressing participants on the first day of the 13^th International AIDS Conference, the chairman said, âWe have a monumental task ahead of us. And thereâs not a second to look back to our yesterdays, to look back at our fears and frustrations. We have no other choice but to go forward and to keep our minds on acting firmly on the knowledge we already have; and of uncovering new ideas and new knowledge on what should be done.â Coovadia thinks the conference met that âmonumental task partly.â âThe very nature of the epidemic, first of all, necessitates us looking realistically at what we can achieve or what we have achieved. So, although I may have sounded as if we might get a vaccine and prevent heterosexual and homosexual transmission, etc, much more successfully than we have, certainly weâve gone in the right direction,â he says. Denying the cause However, he says his remarks also related to the controversy swirling around the conference â the apparent denial by then president Thabo Mbeki that a virus (HIV) was the cause of AIDS. âWe had at that time already a really dreadful history of a schism between the state â by which I mean mainly President Mbeki â and the scientific community and parts of civil society,â In fact, Mbekiâs position prompted some 5,000 scientists from around the world, including about a dozen Nobel laureates, to issue a statement prior to the conference supporting HIV as the cause of the disease. They warned that denial of scientific research could lead to many more deaths. Mbeki had put together an advisory panel that included âAIDS dissidents,â who rejected the link between HIV and AIDS. At the same time, Mbeki said a World Health Organization report on the many health problems facing Africa caused him to reconsider the virus theory. âIt seemed to me that we could not blame everything on a single virus. It seemed to me also that every living African, whether in good or ill health, is prey to many enemies of health that would interact one upon the other in many ways within one human body,â said Mbeki on opening day. âIt was so discouraging,â says Coovadia, âthat our first democratic government could have descended to the level of trying to challenge certain essential methods of arriving at the truth through scienceâ¦. The problem was so large and so urgent and so terrifying that we had to deal with the present and the future rather than dwelling too much on the past.â He says AIDS2000 was a call to Mbeki âto start with us anew in this endeavor to recapture lost ground and to use the best the world had available at that time and in the future for the betterment of our society.â That didnât happen. Whatâs more, Coovadia says Mbekiâs position delayed the availability of life-saving treatment. âHe disputed the efficacy of some of the (antiretroviral) drugs, which is in a way just as bad or even worse because it prevented access to drugs, which could have been affordable at least to South Africa.â Mandela steps in Former President Nelson Mandela, who gave the closing address at the Durban AIDS gathering, spoke directly to the controversy. âSo much unnecessary attention around this conference had been directed towards the dispute that is unintentionally distracting from the real life and death issues we are confronted with as a country,â said Mandela. He added, âIn the face of the great threat posed by HIV/AIDS, we have to rise above our differences and combine our efforts to save our peopleâ¦. Let us not equivocate. A tragedy of unprecedented proportion is unfolding in Africa.â Coovadia says Mandelaâs words nearly moved him and others to tears. He remembers the South African icon receiving an âabsolute, unqualified and spontaneous standing ovation.â âAlthough the opening ceremony is remembered for Mbeki and his foibles and his serious flaws, the closing ceremony reminded us that South Africa had something very, very important. And it had the quality of its people and its president, Mr. Mandela, who was a good reminder of what people of integrity and standing and belief in the workings of science can do.â Beat juice and garlic However, he describes the Mbeki administration as the âworst yearsâ in fighting HIV/AIDS. He says Mbeki made matters worse by appointing a very controversial health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Tshabalala-Msimang, who died last December at age 69, promoted the use of garlic, lemons, beet juice and olive oil to treat HIV/AIDS. âShe was a complete disaster. The problem is I donât think she was her own woman. She was really reflecting the views of the president. So Mbeki holds the responsibility for all the problems that arose during that period and those problems were immense.â Those problems included the lack of access to AIDS medicine. âSo you probably had thousands of children, who got infected because mothers were not given antiretrovirals to prevent mother-to-child transmission. And thereâs been one calculation that because antiretrovirals were not given to people, who were already infected, adults mostly, we lost something like 330,000 lives,â he says. Coovadia adds âThe immensity of Mbekiâsâ¦unscientific views has not been accurately assessed. Maybe it can never be done.â Dr. Coovadia is now a member of President Zumaâs 26-member National Planning Commission. âFor the first time in our countryâs history we will begin to chart our way forward in a purposeful manner with a view to the countryâs long-term interests,â said Zuma on the inaugural meeting of the commission May 11^th. .