Change for South Africa's Fight Against AIDS?

This article was originally published in The New York Times as "South Africa Redoubles Efforts Against AIDS" by Celia Dugger on April 25, 2010. The link for it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/health/policy/26safrica.html.

In this article, Dugger describes the plan that South Africa has to combat the AIDS epidemic that is ravaging the area. Some aspects of the plan include widespread distribution of medicines, free H.I.V. tests for all, recommended circumcisions, and training of the medical community. The undertaking is expected to be "the largest and fastest expansion of AIDS services ever attempted by any nation". The main problem for South Africa is the fact that they have to pay more for some drugs than other countries.

President Jacob Zuma is wasting no time implementing the plan and is making up for time lost under the former president, Thabo Mbeki. The former president questioned the science behind AIDS and often made the drugs that treated it seem harmful. Harvard researchers estimated that this kind of attitude contributed to the premature deaths of approximately 365,000 people. President Zuma is doing just the exact opposite. Recently, he made his H.I.V. test results public in order "to eradicate the silence and stigma that accompanies this epidemic." He hopes to accomplish his goal of testing 15 million people by June 2011.

The connection I made to class with this article was what I read in Mountains Beyond Mountains. In the book, the main doctor Paul Farmer worked to make certain aspects of healthcare (including AIDS treatment) available for all the people who lived in Haiti. President Zuma is essentially doing the same for his people. Additionally one of the problems the book focused on was how the drugs were to be paid for. No doubt the South Africans will be facing the same problem over the next few years. I personally hope that they triumph in their quest to stop their AIDS epidemic from getting any worse and make up for all the time they lost under former president Mbeki.