Five days before the start of the 13th international AIDS conference in Durban on Sunday, an advisory panel on AIDS set up by South African President Thabo Mbeki met there amid optimism that the government might be prepared to modify its position.

The enlargement of the panel from 36 members to 50, with the new members largely comprising mainstream South African and Ugandan AIDS researchers, has led to speculation that the South African government might be about to review its policy on AIDS.

The non-dissident panel members are drawing up a proposed government policy on the prevention and treatment of AIDS.

Members of the dissident and non-dissident camps on the panel are believed to have worked largely independently of each other. The dissident faction has continued to argue for policies based on their claims that AIDS is not contagious and not sexually transmitted.

But further evidence that HIV causes AIDS came from a study by panellists James McIntyre and Glenda Gray on a cohort of babies born to HIV-positive mothers in the township of Soweto who were not treated with antiretroviral drugs. Infant mortality rates after one year were 17/1,000 in babies who were HIV negative after delivery, compared with 326/1,000 in those who were HIV positive.

As Nature went to press, there seemed little chance of a consensus emerging between the dissident and non-dissident panellists. National Research Foundation president Khotso Mokhele, as head of the panel's secretariat, is faced with the task of compiling a report for Mbeki before his opening address to the Durban meeting.