Its a pity some people cannot think beyond the shower issue. Pres J.Z well done for finally aknowledging a pademic that your predecessors failed.

I don't think the AIDS spread naturally in South Africa, I think there are a hands behind the infections

One of the best ways to prevent aids, is to get married to a chaste man or woman who fears God, who will be your life partner and who will not sleep around. These days sex with strangers is so well endorsed and it is made to seem fine as long as you wear a condom. In 1998 aids was already a major problem. If somebody was to calculate how much money has been spent on the awareness campaign and then the costs of treatment I am sure the figure will be shocking. This is really a stupid problem to be having, yet due to ignorance and stubbornness it continues to be. The solution is simple, yet nobody wants to accept it. How sad it is to be punished in this life and then forever thereafter.

When a person of influence sees the elephant in the room, he should be applauded. It is easy to score cheap points at another person’s expense, but I applaud President Jacob Zuma for coming to terms with reality.

South Africa is indeed facing a chronic disease crisis, and it is not just HIV and TB. The proponents of behaviour change (abstinence, be faithful, use condoms, know your status) and ARVs have not changed the situation, and to just continue doing more of the same is madness.

It is well known that South Africans are chronically malnourished. Soils are depleted, food is depleted and the refining of grain removes most of the essential micronutrients. People have moved away from their traditional foods and no longer eat a balanced diet. This alone will seriously impair immunity. We also know that the fortification of refined maize and wheat with micronutrients in the form of chemical isolates has failed to address the problem.

The TB pandemic in Europe and the US was solved between 1900 and 1950 largely by improvements in nutrition, and this pre-dated the introduction of TB immunisation and effective TB drugs. Senegal and Bolivia have very high soil selenium levels and very low HIV prevalence. South Africa and Swaziland have very low soil selenium levels and very high HIV prevalence.

We agree with Basil Kransdorff that if you want to combat chronic disease, first sort out the nutrition.

Geoff Douglas
CEO – Health Empowerment Through Nutrition
www.hetn.org

The way they are going the black south african nation will be the first in history to f@#k themselves out of existence!!!
I would think it was a VERY good thing that there is zero poulation growth instead of being worried about it!!!
We cant afford to look after them anymore!!

The root cause of this is unbridled promiscuity; until South Africans wake up to the fact, they'll continue dying like flies.

The goverment has spent millions on a completely useless advertising campaign encouraging the population to "Love Life." How irresponsible, it's possible that they've worsened the situation. Why don't they rather show before & after pictures of what AIDS actually does to people?

Pres Zuma mentions that life expectancy for males is 51. The last stat I heard for women was 43 years, and as a national average,for men & women, just over 49 years. We'll soon be like Swaziland, where life expectancy is below 40 (according to Wikipedia.org).

Tragedy, and all because people can't control their appetites.

Zuma is making a sensible point here. Although he has made his "mistake" and learned from it, I also think we should learn from it and take HIV/AIDS seriously. It's our responsibility to take care of ourselves and for those we love, but if you want to take the shower method, then go on...

"in the prime of their life, in their child-bearing years".

- what a load of sexist nonsense. How primitive is the man's thinking when he identifies the prime of a woman's life based on her ability to give birth. What is more frightening is the fact that seemingly everyone accepts this nonsense as though it had value.

When it comes to female emancipation both the president and the country seem to have a long way to go.

Well done President Zuma. The wake up call is long over due. The reason we are not winning the war is because the medical profession are managing the management process and sadely and tragically their knowledge and understanding of the nutritional issues are limited. Without effective nutrition suporting the drug regimes - the single medical approach "only" will never win the war. The sensativity of the medical profession to the word "nutrition" that has rsulted from the senile nutrition debate with the ex Minister of Health is a luxury our country cannot afford. The medical professions inability to engage the science of good nutrition is now part of the problem. My advise to Presdient Zuma is to tell the medical profession who sit with the resource - use it to engage and evaluate the nutrition agenda. If they do not - take away the management control from them NOW and lets find skills that will, with an open mind - engage a holistic approach that will include EFFECTIVE BIO-AVAILABLE nutriiton. If President Zuma wants proof of what I am saying - let him better understand how the medical profession are creating DRUG RESISTANT TB by distributing TB drugs on a vast scale to malnourished people. The nausia and the inabiloity of these malnourished people to keep the drugs down is a major componenet is why drug resiatant TB is now out of control. Basil Kransdorff

Mr President recognise that we are not winning againts hiv/aids and recognise that we need to borrow more for fighting this epidamic.ITS easy reduce the bling cars and hotel tarrifs and bashes.