Beyond the grave human tragedies, one of the most vexing aspects of the AIDS denialism that was too prominent at high levels in South Africa in the decade after 1994 is that South Africa ought to have been the continent’s, indeed one of the globe’s, leaders in anti-AIDS science and technology. The country had the expertise, the facilities, and, sadly, the testing ground in the form of the epidemic. Fortunately, the country is beginning to catch up now that government and the doctors and scientists can work in concert with one another. To much fanfare South Africa has announced that it has started going forward with human tests on the first African-produced HIV vaccine. If successful this would go down as a monumental achievement and one that bodes well for future scientific endeavors.
