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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Gerald Oppenheimer, PhD, MPH, Dept of Health & Nutrition Sciences, Brooklyn College, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210, (718) 951-4197, geraldo@brooklyn.cuny.edu

It is a cruel irony that by 1994, the year that South Africa finally freed itself from apartheid, it became evident that the country faced a massive AIDS epidemic, centered in precisely the population so long repressed and excluded. Today, an estimated 6 million South Africans are HIV infected and, of those, 600 to 800 die daily. This presentation, based on oral history interviews with 90 doctors, nurses and activists, describes the response of the minority of health care workers who actively committed themselves to treating individuals infected with HIV. Grappling with the indifference and hostility of colleagues and administrators and the withholding of vital treatment to those with AIDS in the name of resource rationing, health care workers had also to contend with the unexpected: a president, Nelson Mandela's successor, who questioned whether HIV caused AIDS and who rejected the use of antiretroviral medications in the public health care system, even as drug prices rapidly declined. In response, doctors, NGOs, large corporations and activists created “islands of treatment” in the hope of staving off death in as many patients as possible and of pressuring President Mbeki's government into changing it stance.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess salient issues in the 25 year history of HIV/AIDS in South Africa

Keywords: History, HIV/AIDS

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation