The AIDS crisis and South Africa.

Byline: Trudy Rubin

JOHANNESBURG _ One of the keys to stopping the HIV/AIDS pandemic devastating Africa is strong presidential leadership.

The one African country that has turned around its rising rate of infection is Uganda. There, President Yoweri Musaveni, ignoring strong cultural taboos against talking openly about sex, bluntly pressed his country to change risky patterns of sexual behavior. Condom use soared; new infection rates dropped.

Many had hoped for a similar campaign by Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa and the continent's great black hope as leader of its most developed country.

South Africa has an extensive AIDS awareness campaign _ billboards, huge fake rubber condoms hanging off of buildings, free condoms in airports and public toilets _ but all this isn't translating into safer sexual behavior. A fifth of South Africa's adult population is estimated to be HIV-positive, and that figure will rise to a third of the population in 10 more years if current trends continue.

Which makes it all the more tragic that Mbeki, who is in Washington on a state visit, has taken positions that could set back his country's struggle against HIV/AIDS.

Instead of going public as Musaveni has, the reserved Mbeki went to the Internet and got fascinated by the work of two U.S. scientists who reject the idea that the HIV virus causes AIDS. Their thesis is rejected by virtually all public health professionals. Mbeki then convened an AIDS advisory panel two weeks ago on which about half the invited scientists were so-called AIDS dissidents, including some who insisted that there was no African AIDS epidemic at all.