UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years108There have been manyprojects to educateyoung people aboutprevention. Here, in aSoweto Youth Centre,young men and womenare shown how to usecondoms.UNAIDS/G.PirozziThe panel was divided into two camps; those like Coll-Seck who argued that HIV causedAIDS and the others, the so-called AIDS dissidents, arguing against the HIV case. It was,she explained, impossible to reconcile the two.Mbeki’s stance has had profound repercussions on the response in South Africa where,despite high prevalence, the government has been very slow in providing antiretroviraltreatment. At the same time, there are some impressive HIV prevention programmes inSouth Africa – especially for young people – that are replicated as best practice in othercountries, and some excellent workplace programmes providing prevention and treatmentin major corporations.In the USA, Clinton had been slow to mobilize a response to AIDS in the developing world.It was not until April 2000 that his administration formally designated the disease a threat toUS national security, a threat ‘that could topple foreign governments, touch off ethnic warsand undo decades of work in building free-market democracies abroad’ 5 . The NationalSecurity Council had been instructed to make a rapid reassessment of the government’sefforts – the first time it had been involved in combating an infectious disease. Earlier thatyear, in February, a White House interagency working group had been formed. In May2000, Clinton signed an Executive Order which aimed to help make AIDS-related drugsand medical technologies more accessible and affordable in sub-Saharan Africa.5Gellman B (2000). ‘AIDS is declared threat to US national security’. Washington Post, 30 April.