Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa yesterday defended his government's delay in distributing anti-AIDS drugs until this year, saying that it had been necessary to create a critical mass of public health care workers who knew how to instruct patients on the drugs' use.
"It's incorrect merely to say: `Distribute anti-retroviral drugs, problem solved,' " he said. "It can't be correct. It isn't. You've got to come at it in a more comprehensive way.
"The assumption in a country like the United States," he added, is "of a health infrastructure and system that is as good as here."
President Mbeki has been widely criticized in recent years for his willingness to consult scientists who argue that there is no proof that human immunodeficiency virus causes AIDS. South Africa is one of seven African countries with H.I.V. infection rates of more than 20 percent, according to a new United Nations population report.
The report projects the country's population in the year 2050 at 9 percent below the 2000 level of 44 million, and 44 percent lower than it would have been had there been no epidemic.