ABSTRACT
The Mbeki government's handling of HIV and AIDS would be the culture of legislation and litigation that came to accompany the governance of the South African AIDS epidemic. The important feature of the Mbeki government's management of AIDS is perhaps the most controversial, particularly in the manner in which it has been portrayed in the local and international media. The South African government did manage, however, to put the issue of PWAs rights to essential drugs on the international agenda. The official provincial government AIDS response, created in November 1999 and entitled the National Integrated Plan (NIP) further illustrates these challenges. The NIP focused on the Life Skills programme in primary and secondary schools, the voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) programme, and the community and home-based care and support (CHBC) programme, and was jointly delivered by the health, education and welfare sectors and was funded separately from the regular budget process.
