Extract from the transcript of Padraig O'Malley's interview with then ANC Secretary General, Kgalema Motlanthe, August 22 2000

PADRAIG O'MALLEY: Talking about issues one thing struck me, and this is something that I have probably developed an obsession with, and that is with AIDS, HIV/AIDS. Last year when I was interviewing ministers and the like I would ask what in the next 15 years was the major challenge facing SA, and they would say crime, the economy, whatever. No-one said AIDS. Then I would say, "Why didn't you say AIDS? You're wearing a pin." Then they would say AIDS is related to this, that and the other and it's a challenge but there are many challenges we're facing.

My own view is that unless AIDS is the challenge, that unless you marshal all resources to beat this, that the rest is almost irrelevant. There will be no children at the schools, there will be no teachers, there will be no public servants and there will be no social and economic transformation. Yet even as I went through your presentation that had been prepared, the tactics and strategies, you have the five basic pillars, you've got the objectives, there's one section on AIDS and the AIDS programmes and it kind of says there's the President's Partnership in AIDS, HIV has been identified as a national concern, whereas to me the wording should perhaps have been that HIV/AIDS has been identified as the national concern and that everything else is subordinate to this because unless you get it under control you're going from apartheid to AIDS oblivion.

Why does the ANC as an organisation, as a government, not pay more attention, be seen to be more visibly putting this forward that this must be the priority of the national agenda?

KGALEMA MOTLANTHE:  Well it can't be the priority. It is a priority and we have done everything in our power to bring awareness, highlight it. As you say, all of us on our jackets we've got the pin, because it is also the collapse of the immune system. You can't begin with AIDS. The human immune system collapses under certain conditions. Even in the past - people are undernourished and exposed to all kinds of hazards, their system becomes weaker and weaker and collapses.

Sometimes people just don't eat at all and the system collapses and once the immune system has collapsed opportunistic diseases find very low resistance and can actually kill that person. So in a way this one called AIDS doesn't kill. It is the opportunistic diseases that kill people because once your immune system has collapsed you contract flu like I did two weeks ago. It will be with you for ever, there is no waking up, there is no recovery. Tuberculosis as tuberculosis is curable, there is a cure for it, it can be cured. It is the totality of these opportunistic diseases when your immune system has collapsed that kills you.

So society is still trying to isolate the virus so that it can develop a cure for that virus, but in the interim to the extent that all of us are convinced that it is spread through body liquids and that one of the surest ways of transmitting it is sexual intercourse, which is what happens in most cases, it means we must do something about that so that we try and stop the spreading of that virus and do all the relevant things.

If, for instance, you are diagnosed as having symptoms of this disease our concern is that we should have the medical profession saying that we have diagnosed this patient and the symptoms are that there is going to be a syndrome of these diseases, opportunistic diseases which are likely to kill this patient, how can we treat these diseases? When they say you are HIV positive in certain communities because the palliatives and drugs that are available are expensive, very, very costly, very few people can afford them on a regular basis. In essence it means, well you are dead. It's a matter of time. You'll be dead by such and such a time.

And we say why can't we have an approach that says you show the symptoms, you are HIV positive, live a normal life, you're coughing, let the cough be treated as it were so that people must be able to get treatment for these opportunistic diseases. Firstly most of them would have treatment.

PADRAIG O'MALLEY:  What I am still getting back to is why of all the priorities there are would you, rather the ANC at the top -

KGALEMA MOTLANTHE:  If you ask me I would say our biggest priority, priority number one in this country is education. If we were to have, in my view, a national education campaign, another one and another one until you bring up the levels nation-wide, education skills so people can be part and parcel of the modern world in terms of technology information, information and other things. I think we can overcome the spread of AIDS, I think we can.

Then also you see the information flow could be multiplied, part of the problem is ignoring the situation. So if you had to prioritise AIDS, because part of the difficulty would be - you know the predictions on how devastating it's going to be come from insurance companies that want to increase the premiums for insurance and so on. I've heard these arguments when I was in the union, the Chamber of Mines, Old Mutual coming across to say this is what is going to happen, so many people would have died of AIDS, this is going to deplete the fund and therefore we must increase the premiums and so on. They had those arguments and they are Doomsday arguments basically.

And I am saying a bad thing is a bad thing. It doesn't need to be exaggerated. A deadly thing is a deadly thing, it doesn't need to be exaggerated. The motive of, for instance, insurance companies that want to increase premiums for their benefit in positing statistics and making projections of how we will be decimated, we need a bit of caution because if truth be told from what people were saying about countries such as Uganda there shouldn't be anybody left there right now and of course people are still there. Then you've got your other story that says, no Uganda has found a way, an effective way of turning this thing around. It doesn't make sense to me, but that's the way it will come across.

There is always an educated explanation because this thing, the fundamental about this difficulty is that this virus still has to be scientifically isolated. That's the fundamental question because once it is scientifically isolated then the scientists will develop a proper counter for it and we will be much closer to the solution of the problem. That's why it's a symbol, it's not one disease, it's a symbol of opportunistic diseases which kill you because your immune system has collapsed. This thing that causes your immune system to collapse must still be, the virus must still be isolated. There is no evidence anywhere that there has been any isolation of it. That is why people try various drugs to buy a little bit of hope and of course the pharmaceuticals are happy to make money out of it as well.

PADRAIG O'MALLEY:  It's a boon for the pharmaceutical industries.

KGALEMA MOTLANTHE:  It is, and they are very powerful. They in turn, out of the money they make, they also sponsor conferences, they sponsor effective opinion makers, public opinion makers, and in this country we have seen a massive, massive campaign calling for a drug called AZT to be given to women who are rape victims and there is an absence of concern. If this thing works, this drug, surely it should work even if there has been concern, even when there is no rape, even if the consultant is concerned, surely it should work even in that instance?

PADRAIG O'MALLEY:  Do you think there is a campaign being mounted or being backed by the pharmaceutical companies?

KGALEMA MOTLANTHE:  Well the producers of the drug they are very happy, they have so many sales persons, they think they could secure government approval and a commitment that it would be made available and it is something that has to be taken on a daily basis, made available to rape victims, pregnant mothers and that kind of thing, people who are living with HIV. They would make quite a rake in out of it and yet there is no proof that it actually helps.

Source:www.omalley.co.za

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