Cape Town

South Africa is set to continue with health policies acknowledging that HIV causes AIDS, after the final report of a government-sponsored panel fudged the question of whether the causal link is proven.

The controversial panel, established last year by President Thabo Mbeki and including many 'dissidents' who dispute the link, produced a report containing several contradictory recommendations, designed to accommodate both sides of the argument.

The report recommends, for example, that testing for HIV infection be suspended “until its relevance is proved especially in an African context, given the evidence of false positive results in an African setting”. But it also calls for continued “surveillance of HIV prevalence in antenatal clinics, blood banks and among workers”.

Although offering no resolution on the issue, several observers say the report will enable President Mbeki to save face, while allowing the health department to proceed with AIDS policies that acknowledge that HIV causes AIDS.

The way ahead: Tshabalala-Msimang promises that existing anti-HIV measures will continue. Credit: AP

The panel met twice last summer to consider the causes of the disease. But after its report was released last week, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister, conceded that the panel had failed to reach a consensus. She said the government would continue with its existing AIDS programme, while supporting research suggested by the panel into the causes of AIDS (see next item).

The director-general in the health department, Ayanda Ntsaluba, declared publicly last October that HIV causes AIDS, and began implementing a pilot programme using antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the disease.

The dissidents appear to be at least partially satisfied by the door being left open for further research.

The report's author, Khotso Mokhele, president of the National Research Foundation, recommended last week that another committee be established to consider the merits of these proposals. Tshabalala-Msimang expressed hope that at least some financial support would be forthcoming from outside South Africa.

The long delay in the report's arrival has been the subject of speculation. Initially due at the end of last year, it was handed to Tshabalala-Msimang on 18 January, but she subsequently returned it to the panel's secretariat to deal with what she called “editorial changes of a non-scientific nature”.

According to panellist Salim Karim, who is head of the HIV/AIDS unit at the Medical Research Council, “the process of compiling the report was out of the hands of the panellists”.