Stop talking and act on HIV/AIDS, urges Mandela

"Don't just talk about HIV/AIDS - do something about it." With these words, Nelson Mandela on 3rd December called on all South Africans to take action to fight HIV/AIDS, rather than merely discuss the pandemic.

Speaking at the launch of an R80-million programme to provide anti-retrovirals to people who cannot afford them, Mandela said while information about the virus was important, it was not enough.

"It is not sufficient merely to get the information," he said. "You must do something on the ground to turn this pandemic." People could, for example, adopt an HIV-positive child, he said.

The programme was launched at an event in Johannesburg on, attended by almost 800 people, including HIV/AIDS activist Zackie Achmat.

Mandela publicly asked Achmat, who is HIV-positive but has refused to take anti-retroviral drugs until everyone has access to them, to start taking them. Achmat just smiled and promised to do so "...as soon as it's feasible".

Mandela is the patron of the anti-retroviral programme, which is a joint initiative by the Souh African Medical Association (SAMA) and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which has donated
R10-million to kick-start the project. SAMA hopes to raise the remaining R70-million through donations.

Doctors volunteering for the project have been specially trained to provide triple therapy, a complex form of treatment so new that it has not been dealt with in medical schools.

The doctors hope to give free anti-retrovirals to 9000 HIV-positive patients who cannot afford to buy the drugs themselves. Although anti-retrovirals cannot cure HIV/AIDS, they can keep HIV/AIDS numbers low by preventing the virus from replicating.

Triple therapy consists of three different types of anti-retrovirals, which target the virus at different stages in its life-cycle.