Compiled and edited by Martin Flynn
In the past Mandela had resisted public criticism of his successor, but
last month he did say that preventing mother-to-baby transmission of the
virus must be central to South Africa's prevention programmes.
For many years Mbeki has questioned the link between HIV and Aids and
denied life saving medications to the HIV populace in South Africa, while
millions of his fellow countrymen and women have died painful deaths from
the disease.
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Health treatment is 'greatest market failure'
Microsoft magnate Bill Gates, making the opening speech to the 9th Retrovirus
Conference in Seattle, told his audience that the reason his Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation had decided to devote its $14 billion resources
to global health, and in particular Aids and vaccines, was because health
inequality was "the greatest market failure of all time".
"Capitalism is the best system ever invented for the creation
of wealth, but the market can never work when it comes to the diseases
of poor countries. That is why philanthropy is necessary."
Criticised by Aids activists in the audience for restricting his funding
to vaccines and microbicides, rather than drug access to the millions
already with HIV, he said that sixty years of drugs for TB had failed
to stop millions still dying from it. "You'd have to invest in some
pretty spectacular resources to implement global treatment," he said.
It was difficult enough already to recruit the many thousands needed into
trials to
prove whether a vaccine was really effective, he added. The foundation was
