The trade union movement and community activists remain furious at what many have described as the government's continued "HIV denialism".
This follows President Thabo Mbeki's flat rejection last weekend that an agreement on HIV/Aids treatment had been reached at the Nedlac social forum.
Mbeki and health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang also caused a minor outcry in the medical profession by mentioning tuberculosis (TB) in isolation as the country's major killer.
"Of course TB is perhaps the major killer and there has been an explosion of TB deaths in the past five years," said Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) national manager Nathan Geffen. But, he pointed out, many if not most TB deaths were HIV related.
A Cape Town medical specialist noted: "The existence of HIV has greatly exacerbated the problem of TB."
The issue of treatment plans became further confused when labour department spokesperson Snuki Zikalala said the only agreement reached was between the TAC and Cosatu.
"No so," said Chez Milani, the general secretary of the Federation of Unions of SA.
"There was a draft agreement reached by the entire labour movement, community, government and business representatives."
Trade union representatives are particularly annoyed that the image has been created through various media reports that whatever draft agreement exists was drawn up between Cosatu and the TAC.
"This is wilful distortion of the Nedlac process and it threatens the integrity of Nedlac," said Vukani Mde, Cosatu's spokesperson.
He pointed out that "the simple truth" was that each constituency had produced its own drafts and "these were discussed and a compromise reached".
The impression the labour and community representatives were left with was that it was a mere formality to gain the signatures of the government and organised business.
Business seems to have mentioned that it would be necessary to take the draft to its scattered constituency, but did not apparently see any problems with getting agreement.
"From a labour viewpoint, it all seemed cut and dried," said Mde.
That this attitude was justified can be seen in notes and minutes of Nedlac meetings and heard on tape recordings made of most of the meetings.
When the four constituencies first came together on the HIV/Aids issue on October 5 last year, they agreed that "each sector shall make written submissions regarding the content of a treatment plan".
Each sector did just that.
The parties had been brought together at Nedlac by the forum's director, Phillip Dexter. This followed a request made to the forum in July last year by Cosatu, representing all three trade union federations, and by the TAC.
The combined labour movement and the TAC felt it was imperative that a process be started to negotiate a national treatment plan. "People are dying every day, so it seemed a matter of urgency," said Milani.
By September last year the Nedlac management committee had established a senior task team to handle the negotiations.
Health department director-general Ayanda Ntsaluba was supported by Nono Simelele, the chief director of HIV/Aids and TB, while Rams Ramashia of the labour department had the support of his labour relations deputy, Les Kettledas.
Labour was represented by Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi; SA Clothing and Textile Workers' Union general secretary Ebrahim Patel, who acted as a liaison with the other federations; and the general secretary of the SA Transport and Allied Workers' Union, Randall Howard.
The business position was put forward by the business representative in Nedlac, Raymond Parsons; Vic van Vuuren of Sanlam; and Faizel Randera of the Chamber of Mines. TAC secretary Mark Heywood and the community sector's convener, Fadilla Legadien, made up the community sector component.
"When the government side put in their submissions, they considered all the cost implications," said Mde.
These were taken into account in the final draft agreed to by all the parties.
Agreement was reached after seven meetings, in which the different submissions were integrated into the final draft.
In November a target date for completion of the process was set as December 1, the start of what was dubbed International Aids month. But the process took longer than expected and the last meeting ended late on November 29.
The TAC had remained in regular contact with its constituencies and was able to endorse the agreement on the spot.
Business and the government required more time to enable their representatives to refer the final draft for formal agreement.
"There seemed consensus that everything would be signed by the end of December," said Mde.
However, several senior Cosatu officials privately expressed the fear that the government might renege on the deal, but was using the apparent agreement to ensure that the issue of government foot-dragging on HIV/Aids was not brought up at the ANC's December conference in Stellenbosch.
"Now it seems we may have been justified," said one of the December cynics.
"But this issue is a political albatross around the neck of the president - that he cannot deny."