PRETORIA, March 22 (Reuters) -- South African President Thabo Mbeki, who was widely criticised for appointing AIDS advisers who questioned the link between HIV and the deadly disease, said on Thursday the advisory panel's report would be issued soon.

Sources in the medical profession told Reuters there had been speculation the report might be suppressed, but Mbeki told editors in his Pretoria office that the panel he named more than a year ago to investigate AIDS in South Africa had submitted an interim report.


"They haven't handed it over to me yet, but they have completed the report and it will be distributed pretty soon," he said. He added that the report would call for a reassessment of HIV/AIDS testing.

It was drafted by an international panel of scientists including several so-called dissidents who question the link between the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

"I know that part of what they have decided to do as scientists is to look at the question: What do these HIV tests actually test," Mbeki said. "They say that the (HIV testing) kits cannot be used for diagnostic purposes. They will not say whether you have or you don't have HIV. They will show antibodies which indicate that there is something wrong. You then need to carry out clinical tests to be able to tell what it is that is wrong."


MBEKI UNDER FIRE


Mbeki has come under fire from AIDS activists around the world for giving a platform in his panel to unorthodox views and for questioning the link between HIV and AIDS. Some of the scientists argue AIDS can be caused by recreational drug use.

One of these, Peter Duesberg of Berkeley in the United States, told Reuters in a message on Thursday: "Thus AIDS appears to be a collection of chemical epidemics caused by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs andanti-HIV drugs in the United States and Europe, and primarily by the lack of essential nutrients in Africa."

The South African government earlier this week released figures showing that 4.7 million people, or one in nine of the population, were infected with HIV. The United Nations said separately on Thursday that South Africa had the highest number of people living with HIV or AIDS while its neighbour, Botswana, had the highest rate of infection.

Asked how he felt about these statistics, Mbeki said: "I think we should wait for the work of the scientists about this because that is precisely the question they are raising, these scientists -- How are these figures arrived at." Mbeki told Reuters later the government was basing its policy on the estimate of 4.7 million people infected.

"The antenatal statistics were released by the government so we are proceeding on the basis that this is the incidence of HIV in the country. But I am saying that the scientists are raising some questions...they could show that we underestimate or overestimate. It is one of the issues that needs to be addressed," he said.