Article: South African Fulbright Scholar Speaks About Horrors of AIDS

15 June 2001

Article: South African Fulbright Scholar Speaks About Horrors of AIDS

M. Ngcoya talks at State Department

By Scott Timmreck
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- As the HIV/AIDS virus continues to rip through Africa and take its toll on an estimated 36 million people worldwide, Mvuselelo Ngcoya does not want the West to pour exorbitant amounts of money into the most affected areas of the continent. In fact, he doesn't think the West can do too much to help the crisis. Instead, he wants people to talk. Just talk.

"If you go to all the funerals, nobody mentions AIDS," Ngcoya said June 15. "The only way we can fight AIDS is to talk radically about it." In his home country, a child has a one-in-seven chance of being infected with HIV/AIDS.

The South African Ph.D. student, who goes by the name "Patrick," is currently studying international relations at American University under the United States' Fulbright Program. The initiative, named for former Arkansas Senator William J. Fulbright, was established in 1946 to generate a better understanding between the peoples of the world.

In an hour-long discussion that focused mainly on prevention of the disease, Ngcoya highlighted "True Love," a government-sponsored AIDS education program he contributes to when he visits South Africa. Participants in the program travel to schools and speak about the dangers and horrors of AIDS to groups of schoolchildren that fill large auditoriums and fields. He asks the children to sign pledges of abstinence, which serve as promises that they will wait for sex until marriage, thereby decreasing the risks of contracting AIDS.

Ngcoya stated that critics don't believe such efforts are worth money and time. But, "when you see people rotting away in front of you, you realize we need to look at radical ways of fighting this."

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most infected with HIV/AIDS, accounting for 70% of the total worldwide population of people living with the disease. The region contains only 10% of the world's population.

The 21 countries on the planet most affected with HIV/AIDS are in Africa. The virus is costing those countries up to half a percent of per capita growth each year. And Ngcoya thinks that African governments and African media need to do more. AIDS ranks as only the tenth most popular issue covered by South African media, behind cricket and other sports, he said, citing a recent report by an independent firm.

"And when it is covered, it is not because people care about those who are dying, but because of the policies or the political implications of the disease.

"The only way that the world can change, the only way that we can progress through the problem of AIDS is by talking about it in an effective manner. Government policies can only change when the people speak."

Government policies changed in Senegal when the prevalence of HIV/AIDS began to rise. Thanks to education efforts, 66% of men now use condoms during casual sex, as do 50% of women. Senegal's infection rate is now less than 2%.

"If you see people dying, and you go talk to them in their deathbeds, then you begin to see this is not just academic," Ngcoya said. "This is not about theory and science. This is not about condoms. This is about life itself."