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Good riddance! : editorial

2008; Health and Medical Publishing Group; Volume: 98; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

2078-5135

Daniel J Ncayiyana,

HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses

One could almost feel the earth tremble from the cheering when newly installed President Kgalema Motlanthe announced the removal of Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang from the health portfolio in the new cabinet. The nightmare was finally over. South Africa was rid of a health minister, once described as 'a drunk and a thief', whose bizarre views on HIV and AIDS had made her the laughing stock of the international community and an object of intense embarrassment here at home. In one of her more spectacular acts of buffoonery, she had the official South African exhibition stall at the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto display garlic, lemon and beetroot as South Africa's remedies of choice in the management of HIV and AIDS, prompting a group of more than 60 international HIV experts, including Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of the HI virus, to write to President Thabo Mbeki to echo the numerous and repeated calls here at home for her to be fired. The calls were stubbornly ignored by President Mbeki.