South Africa: Lancet slams SA government AIDS policy

The Lancet, a leading international scientific journal, has lambasted the South African government for being defensive and urged it to “show backbone and courage to acknowledge and seriously tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis of its people”. The comments followed an editorial in this week’s Lancet on the findings of a Medical Research Council study that attempts to quantify misclassification of HIV/AIDS deaths concluded for the year 2000-01.