After failing for years to face up to its tragic status

After failing for years to face up to its tragic status as the country most ravaged by HIV/AIDS, South Africa is taking a dramatic new approach to the epidemic that experts say could stop a hemorrhage of unnecessary death.

AIDS causes about 350,000 deaths per year in South Africa, which has 5.7 million HIV-infected people -- more than any other nation in the world. And yet instead of declaring war on the disease, former President Thabo Mbeki spent much of the past decade denying it. Under Mbeki, the South African government delayed the launch of lifesaving drug treatment programs, advocated useless herbal cures, and scorned the medically established link between AIDS and the virus. Critics say those decisions cost hundreds of thousands of South African lives.

But in a landmark speech to parliament late last week, President Jacob Zuma rejected his predecessor's stance. "Knowledge will help us to confront denials and the stigma attached to the epidemic," said Zuma, who took office in May. He ordered a "massive mobilization campaign" to educate the country about HIV/AIDS transmission. "All South Africans must know that they are at risk and must take informed decisions to reduce their vulnerability to infection or, if infected, to slow the advance of the disease," Zuma said. He claimed the campaign would help cut the rate of new infections by 50 percent by 2011 and would be accompanied by an extension of anti-retroviral drug (ARVs) treatment to 80 percent of those who need it.

The president made the need for action brutally clear, noting that the number of deaths in the country could soon outnumber births. "If we do not respond with urgency and resolve, we may well find our vision of a thriving nation slipping from our grasp," he said.

Alexander Joe, AFP / Getty Images

Patients await treatment at an AIDS clinic in Winterton, South Africa.

Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa, agrees that the "high mortality rate from HIV" is the "biggest challenge facing our democracy, our health and our future prosperity. We can't put our country on track until we seriously deal with HIV/AIDS."