Speaker 1:

So I've been making many, many sacrifices and many penances pleading to God that, "Please, I love this baby so much, I want to make a very big miracle, you know, if you can spread it in the papers, just if you can heal him." But there's nothing of that, he's getting worse and worse and finish and finish. I will miss him very much because I love him, very, but more than anyone else in the house. He's just hanging, hanging. I will miss him very much.

Speaker 2:

11 month old Bani is HIV positive. His spindly body is barely the husk of a child his age. Bani is in the final, writhing stages of AIDS.

Thea Jarvis:

It's a bit better.

Speaker 1:

It's better.

Thea Jarvis:

A little bit better, he wants water. Maybe the bottle, always help to take the fever down a bit.

Speaker 2:

There's little more that can be done for Bani, the challenge now is to ease his suffering and to keep him comfortable.

Thea Jarvis:

There's definitely a real little Bani in here that we know and love. He was always small and sick, you know? But he definitely has a little loving little personality that responds to affection. All right, Bani. He's being doing this general downward drain for a couple of months now and he's, you know, he's definitely on his way out, now. The little lights are going off, you know?

Speaker 2:

Many of the babies at this Children's Home outside Johannesburg have already been infected and orphaned by HIV. Some will meet birth and death within a year. They're the youngest victims of the AIDs epidemic. But as the disease spreads, the South African government is locked in a debate about the very fundamentals of HIV/AIDS. The government and its scientific allies are not convinced that HIV causes AIDS.

Speaker 4:

Science has not close the questions. The debate has continued. The so-called HIV/AIDS theories have impsotulated since 1983, and up to now they have not had any answers whatsoever. So you can't close the questions. The questions have to be asked. [crosstalk]

Speaker 2:

A wedding ceremony spills onto the streets of Soweto. It's a welcomed celebration. Afternoons like these are a rare pleasure in Soweto's neglected townships. [inaudible] is stepping out for the first time as husband and wife. They're beginning married life with more freedom and opportunity than their parents dared to imagine.

Speaker 5:

[foreign language].

Speaker 2:

Many of the older guests enjoying the wedding were school students during the ugliest and most violent days of Apartheid. They were among the children in school clothes who faced police in riot gear. Hundreds of their classmates were shot dead during the horrific riots here in 1976. But now amid the debris of Apartheid, a new enemy is looming. AIDS is quietly swallowing young lives. Last year, the disease killed more than a quarter of a million South Africans. In South Africa, 4.2 million people are already infected with HIV, the largest HIV positive population in the world. Lisis Kinyali died from AIDS 10 days ago. He worked as a telephone technician and was unable to afford life-saving medication. He's following his wife into an early grave.

Speaker 6:

[foreign language] We want treatment.

Speaker 5:

We want treatment.

Speaker 6:

We want treatment.

Speaker 5:

We want treatment.

Speaker 6:

We want treatment.

Speaker 5:

We want treatment.

Speaker 4:

One death in every five minutes, or I think it is going to reduce to one minute now. As long as we do not get generics or any medication, people are going to die in large numbers. So we need medication.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible] is young, HIV positive, and angry. He's part of the Treatment Action Campaign, a group which is demanding immediate access to affordable AIDS medication. The activists of the TAC say it's time for drug companies to loosen their patents, and allow cheaper, generic drugs onto the market.

Speaker 7:

Most of the people who are HIV positive, they come to me on advice about treatment, so for me, sometimes, I just think of leaving my job. Not because I don't like my job, but because of what is happening. People cannot get medication.

Speaker 2:

But the drug companies are not the sole target of the protestors. The Treatment Action Campaign says that it's the South African government, which could ease the suffering of AIDS patients. The TAC says President Thabo Mbeki should lead the way. Thabo Mbeki is questioning the basic assumptions about AIDS. He argues that there's not enough evidence to prove that HIV causes AIDS. As other nations push ahead with treatment and prevention programmes, President Mbeki is defending his approach.

Speaker 8:

You've been portrayed or perceived as eccentric, arrogant, unhinged of your [inaudible]. These sorts of criticism has been used to describe your behaviour in regards to the AIDS question. How do you feel about these criticisms that people are saying that you're off your rocker?

Thabo Mbeki:

My colleagues haven't said I'm unhinged, the people of South Africa have no said I'm unhinged.

Speaker 2:

Is President Mbeki being treated fairly about his approach to HIV/AIDS?

Speaker 4:

No, I don't think so, and the people who hold the view that HIV causes AIDS dislike him. They dislike him, asking questions because they have something at stake. They keep questions this, so those who don't like him, those scientists who don't like him, it is because they have really not openly declared their interests in this debate.

Speaker 2:

Thabo Mbeki and his advisors say the link between HIV and AIDS is unclear. They accuse drug companies of clouding the debate.

Speaker 4:

The drug companies have suddenly found that other parts of Africa do not have the logistics, do not have the capital, there's no chance of making massive profits. South Africa has the infrastructure to enable them to make the massive profits that they do. All the drug companies are here. You would think you're in the United States sometimes when you're in South Africa. That is the reason in South Africa is the epicentre for drug companies, to supply the rest of Africa. So if you dismiss the question of HIV causes AIDS, drug companies will lose out.

John Robbie:

I say let's get out and vote. People died so we could vote in this country so the least we can do is actually exercise that vote, but what is it ...

My opinion is that HIV and AIDS should be like an invading force coming into the country, that the whole country should be mobilised to fight a war against HIV and AIDS led by the government, and I don't think that has happened.

Speaker 2:

John Robbie is the Talk Back King of Johannesburg. The powerful, opinionated, outspoken star of Radio 702.

John Robbie:

Do you accept that HIV causes AIDs?

Manto T.M:

Why do you ask me that question today? I have answered that question nth time.

John Robbie:

Yes, and the answer is?

Speaker 2:

When he steadfastly challenged President Mbeki's health minister in a celebrated interview on the HIV/AIDs controversy, Robbie quickly drew a stinging response from South Africa's governing party.

John Robbie:

I find your reaction to that question absolutely bizarre. That's my final word on it.

Manto T.M:

That's [inaudible].

John Robbie:

Bizarre. All right. Go away. I cannot take that rubbish any longer.

Five o'clock news headlines the ANC issued a statement saying that unless John Robbie was fired, that they would ask the unions not to have anything to do with 702 and they would find a different ... In other words, it was a direct threat. They were saying, "John Robbie has to go or 702 is out of the loop."

Speaker 12:

Nine 'til twelve, every week day morning.

Speaker 2:

The none too subtle subtext? The government was sticking to its claims that HIV does not inevitably cause AIDS, and it wasn't going to put up with criticism.

John Robbie:

It's such a vital issue, and you know, we talked to medical people, and we talked to people who work, especially, in the poorer communities where people are dying like flies because of AIDS and because the HIV statistics are so unbelievable. There is this perception that there are intellectual debates going on, you know, with people sitting on leather arm chairs discussing academic issues while people are dying. Doctors are telling me, "HIV is the main cause of AIDS, we need action fast and all we're getting is this ridiculous debate."

Speaker 4:

Yeah, well them produce the evidence, which shows that many people are dying. It would be helpful if the media got out of this debate and left the scientists to sort the debate out through scientific debate and discourse.

Speaker 13:

How did he sleep? Hello, Mr. Tembizo. It's very depressing, extremely depressing, and the pity of it is that you know that so many more people are infected, that what you are seeing now is nothing compared to what we will be seeing in about six, seven years time, when all the people in the country who have HIV now have full blown AIDS. Okay, I'll start here on the back. [foreign language].

Speaker 2:

At this hospice in Soweto, there's limited medication and only enough funding to operate four beds. But it's still a haven for those in pain. [Si Tembizo] is slipping towards death. His doctor says he's unlikely to live another day. Does he know that it may only be another 24 hours?

Speaker 13:

Not, we wouldn't tell him that it might be another 24 hours but he knows that he has HIV, he knows that he has AIDS, he knows that he's got a terminal disease, an incurable disease, and he knows that he will probably die from it. He has insight into his condition.

Thabo Mbeki:

Good morning, gentlemen.

Speaker 2:

The President is struggling to deliver a strong, clear message to his people. He's now under more pressure than ever before to lead the way. The government, too is feeling the weight of expectation. As a result, it's starting to provide some much needed relief. The government has signed a deal with drug company Pfizer to distribute more than a hundred million dollars worth of antifungal medication. For their part, the pharmaceutical companies defend the high prices they charge for the more effective drug therapies.

Speaker 14:

The pharmaceuticals, they are really ... Yes, they make money, they make profits but basically they're there to manufacture, to discover, manufacture, and deliver drugs.

Speaker 15:

Do you get AIDS by eating?

Speaker 5:

No.

Speaker 15:

Do you get AIDS by hugging?

Speaker 5:

No.

Speaker 2:

In the long [inaudible] the only affordable option is prevention.

Speaker 15:

You can only get AIDS by doing sex, 'cause if you don't use a condom, you will die.

Speaker 5:

You will die.

Speaker 15:

You will die. Personally, I feel we, as Africans, we've not been quite open to our kids. In our culture, you can't teach children at this age about sex. But then with the present situation, and with life as it is beginning to change, it is necessary for them to know about AIDS, especially AIDS as actually brought us down, because we've since realised that by not educating them we're actually killing them.

Speaker 2:

These children are a critically important target group for AIDS educators. They're in primary school and heading for the most dangerous age group of all. The United Nations has estimated that in South Africa, one-third of all 15-year-olds will die from AIDS. But these programmes are rare, and far to reach those most at risk outside the school system. The young people out on the street, in the thick of high risk, there's no end to the dangerous myth and superstition.

Speaker 16:

The myth is, if a guy with HIV or AIDS sleeps with a virgin, then the AIDS will get cured, you see, which is not true. Not at all.

Speaker 2:

14-year-old [Nuhundo] is smart and AIDS-aware, but that's not true for many of her age, a generation doomed by ignorance and neglect.

Speaker 16:

The future's supposed to be ours, you see. We're supposed to be the leaders of tomorrow and if because, lately, we, the youth, are dying before our parents are, and in the next generation there's nothing our parents can do because they, I think, they'll be all dead. The generation after us are smaller kids and there's nothing they can do, you see, at that age. Our future is shattered, you see? The leaders of tomorrow are all going to die, you see? Because of AIDS and because of their ignorance and they're doing things to impress their friends.

Thea Jarvis:

This is what we're seeing actually, we're seeing the young teenagers now, 13, 14, 15-year-olds actually having babies, the babies are HIV positive and those are the babies that are lying in my cots now. You know, it's, you know, children like that end up having these babies, and then the babies are positive, and so it's a real downwards cycle, all the way long.

Speaker 2:

Babies like Bani and little Wendy, who's also in the final stages of her disease ...

Thea Jarvis:

Okay, come on.

Speaker 2:

... they're the tragic cases filling the cots at the Love Of Christ Mission. Since she established her mission here, Thea Jarvis has seen traditional family structures shattered. Parents taken by AIDS, children heading the household, many falling into prostitution.

Thea Jarvis:

Some of the little girls will have got their little fingernails polished and they've got their lipstick on. You can already see that what they're into, you know, to try and survive as families. Most of them aren't going to school and they stand along the tar road, selling themselves, and getting into cars, you know. We can see that happening on a daily basis. They're doing that to try and keep their little families going, their sibling, baby siblings, and so on, and younger siblings trying, they keep them together and keep them fed, and so on. It's a very hard thing to live with. I mean when you've loved a child as your own since he was born it's very, very difficult. My pillow can tell you some stories of many stormy nights.

Speaker 2:

As the AIDS epidemic continues to inflict despair and loss, President Thabo Mbeki is not wavering. He's determined to debate the science of the disease while others are left to deal with the consequences.

Thea Jarvis:

If you look at the scale of the problem that paralyse everybody, all I can do is my little birth, and this is my little birth.