The ANC's role in the magnitude of the HIV/Aids pandemic and the death of possibly millions of people due to the disease cannot be ignored. Another direct consequence is that the country still has the biggest Aids problem in the world on its hands.
The first HIV case was diagnosed in 1983 in South Africa and although it was very quickly recognised as a worldwide pandemic, the ANC government fell into a state of denial.
The seed of denial was widely sown under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki from 1999 to 2008.
Despite all scientific evidence pointing to the fact that HIV does indeed cause Aids, Mbeki kept denying it. He even went so far as labelling drugs meant to stop the transmission of the virus from a pregnant mother to her unborn foetus as poison.
After that, his Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, tried to convince Aids sufferers to rather use garlic, beet, lemons and the African potato as proven remedies to treat the disease.
It is estimated that at a stage during Mbeki's term, approximately 900 people died of Aids every day. Most of these deaths had been preventable.
Another former president's view on the transmission of the virus is equally shocking.
In a case from 2006 where former President Jacob Zuma was accused of raping an HIV-positive woman, he testified that he did not use a condom, but he did take a shower after the incident to prevent him from contracting the disease.
These are the kind of leaders at whose mercy millions of South Africans suffering from a deadly disease were.
If government had snapped out of its state of denial earlier, South Africa would not still be facing the biggest HIV/Aids crisis in the world today.
A total of 13,9% of the country's population is currently HIV-positive. It includes a quarter of all women aged between 15 and 49. In 2002, 3,68 million people in the country were HIV-positive. Today, the figure stands at a shocking 8,45 million.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, government did the exact opposite. Draconian measures were implemented, which were so stringent that it hampered the public's access to important medical care.
It had a detrimental impact on HIV sufferers, and others suffering from serious medical conditions, and it even facilitated the large-scale spread of the disease. It is nothing but a continued denial of the growing problem.
According to official statistics, 85 796 people died from HIV/Aids in South Africa in 2022 alone.
The ANC government has blood on its hands because of how it handled the HIV/Aids pandemic. And the time has come for the public to bring the ANC to book for it.
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