cape town

South Africa's Minister of Health, Nkosazana Zuma, has confirmed she has not rejected an offer by the US pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) to donate $100 million over the next five years towards fighting AIDS in southern Africa (see Nature 399, 96; 1999).

But, speaking on South African radio, Zuma said that the offer must be modified to conform with the government's healthcare policy before it is endorsed.

The initiative, dubbed ‘Secure the Future’, is targeted at South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. On its announcement last month, the South African Department of Health said it wished to be “an active partner in this effort”.

According to Jon Weisberg, a spokesman for BMS, one important feature of the initiative is the establishment of a ‘virtual institute’, funded by BMS. This will assess research proposals from southern African universities and health research bodies.

But the department also said that the government's endorsement was “conditional on the development of a mutually acceptable implementation plan for the South African component”.

South Africa's health minister wants AIDS care to prioritize orphans — shown here in Natal. Credit: JOAO SILVA/PICTURENET AFRICA

Zuma outlined four areas of concern at a meeting with BMS before its announcement: sending South African doctors to the United States for training in HIV treatment — including clinical trials of BMS products (which Zuma rejected as irrelevant to the country's needs); financing clinical trials in South Africa; that only preclinical studies approved by the South African Medicines Research Council were acceptable; and that funding to community outreach programmes should focus on giving health care at home and caring for orphans.

Ian Roberts, special adviser to Zuma, said that Zuma told BMS that South Africa would not endorse their programme until it could view and approve the alterations to the initiative. But BMS left the plan unchanged when it was launched, and two weeks later Roberts issued a statement in which he emphasized that the government had not endorsed the initiative (see Nature 399, 288; 1999).

But according to Mark Ahn, senior director, operations and planning (international), at BMS, Zuma had, before the meeting, appointed the heads of the Medical Research Council of South Africa and the department's HIV/AIDS/STD Directorate to the advisory board that will select the research projects to be funded.

Such studies are to be proposed by African medical institutions, and not the company. The board will also select the fellows who will participate in the health education exchange programmes.

“We are still awaiting a response from BMS on whether they are prepared to tailor their proposals to South Africa's needs,” says Vincent Hlongwane, Zuma's spokesman. It is hoped that the position is clarified soon, as the first board meeting of the initiative is scheduled for 24 June.