New from CFR: John Campbell on South Africa’s HIV/AIDS Past

In a post yesterday on his blog, CFR Senior Fellow John Campbell wrote about South Africa’s history of combating HIV/AIDS. He focuses on Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who was just appointed chairperson of the African Union Commission after serving as South Africa’s health and then foreign minister under administrations that took questionable approaches to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As Campbell writes:

The Mbeki government sponsored virodene, essentially a quack remedy, for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and did not distribute antiretrovirals through the public health system and for a time even blocked AZT trials. It took years for South Africa to join the scientific mainstream in HIV/AIDS treatment. The disease remains stigmatized despite Nelson Mandela’s public acknowledgement after he had left office that a son had died of the disease.

You can read the full post here.