BARCELONA ‘€“ South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat has urged the world to immediately lay to rest the counterproductive debate between AIDS prevention and treatment.

Achmat, who has been advised by his doctor not to travel, delivered his message to the 14^th International AIDS Conference via a pre-recorded video message that was relayed at this morning’€™s plenary session.

‘€œIt is critical that every treatment activist also become a prevention activist,’€ he said.

‘€œFrom a purely public health care perspective it is short sighted not to treat HIV, to say that we must focus on prevention and exclude treatment. On the other hand it is unconscionable, because what we are speaking of are not cold statistics, but our lives.  

Our lives matter, the five million people in South Africa with HIV matter and the millions of people throughout the world already infected with HIV, their lives matter. And so, it is not simply the question of cold statistics that we are putting to you, but a question of valuing every person’€™s life equally. Just because we are poor, just because were are black, just because we live in environments and continents that are far from you, does not mean that our lives should be valued less.’€

Achmat said the partial price reductions and insufficient donations by drug companies would not assist in the long term to deal with the epidemic in a sustainable and an effective manner.

Generic competition was what was required, he said.

He appealed to all the brand name drug companies to issue non-restrictive voluntary licenses at between 3 to 4% of royalty, to ensure that poor countries and communities had access to anti-retroviral therapy.

‘€œThis will eliminate the unnecessary conflict between the activist community, government and drug companies.’€

Closer to home Achmat urged corporate mining giant Anglo America to reinstate its anti-retroviral pilot programmes and treat its workers.

After announcing its pilot programme with much fanfare, the company cancelled the treatment pilot earlier this year.

‘€œThose workers have used their bodies and sacrificed their bodies and their families to ensure that the company makes the enormous amounts of profit it does on the world market for gold and other minerals,’€ Achmat said.

He went on to label the South African government’€™s earlier stances on HIV/AIDS as ‘€œnot only scandalous’€, but said reduced ‘€œmany of us’€ to despair, took away the hope of many thousands of people in the country and threw the health care workers and the health system into disarray.

‘€œThat position now has fortunately changed however we still believe that we all have to be vigilant, that we should encourage the South African government and all its officials to maintain a position that HIV does cause AIDS. And more importantly that HIV can be treated as well as prevented.’€