This week, South Africa’s new Health Minister, Barbara Hogan, said it was unquestionable that HIV causes AIDS. Her discourse comes in contrast with her predecessors who had denied for years the link between the HIV and AIDS.

Barbara Hogan is a South African native who spent years in prison for fighting apartheid. She joined the African National Congress (ANC) party in 1977 and campaigned against apartheid. Five years later she was arrested for membership in the ANC and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “furthering the aims of a banned organisation” and after being interrogated, tortured and held in solitary confinement for one year, she was found guilty of high treason. Hogan was released in 1990 when the ban on the ANC was lifted.

Ms. Hogan is a member of the advisory board of the Amandla AIDS Fund (AAF), which was established by the nonprofit organization Artists for a New South Africa (ANSA) in 2003.

“We know that HIV causes Aids,” Ms Hogan told an international AIDS vaccine conference in Cape Town.

“It was imperative to get ahead of the curve of this epidemic 10 years ago. We all have lost ground. It's even more imperative now that we make HIV prevention work. We desperately need an effective HIV vaccine.”

South Africa is currently experiencing one of the most severe AIDS epidemics in the world. At the end of 2007, there were approximately 5.7 million people living with HIV in South Africa. There are many possible reasons why South Africa has been so badly affected by AIDS, including poverty, social instability and a lack of government action.

The South African government started to provide antiretroviral treatment to HIV-positive people in 2004, years after many other nations had begun their programs to fight AIDS. Since then, the distribution of the drugs has been slow, with less that 30% of people receiving treatment at the end of 2007.

Extreme poverty, the difficulties that have been faced by AIDS education and prevention campaigns are often associated with high HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS prevention techniques, such as condoms, circumcision and new drugs are improving, but more effort is needed to reduce the risk of HIV infection.

As AIDS is a global pandemic that has infected an estimated 33 million people, of whom 5.5 million are in South Africa, measures have to be taken in order to find a more effective vaccine and cut the number of deaths. The search for a more effective antiretroviral therapy that could prolong people’s lives many years continues, but one of the reasons that slow researchers’ work is the fact that the virus mutates and they have to change the vaccine every year. Vaccines can, however, help boost the immune system of those already infected, helping them fight the virus and extending their lifetime.

Former President Thabo Mbeki, who for years suggested that HIV did not lead to AIDS, resigned last month and his successor Kgalema Motlanthe took office as President. He appointed Barbara Hogan as Minister of Health to replace Tshabalala-Msimang. Her speech at the international AIDS conference was the first South-African discourse to state that HIV causes AIDS after a decade of discredited government policies on AIDS.