Toronto — Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has blasted the media for misrepresenting SA's efforts to combat HIV and "distorting" its exhibition at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

The stand, with its prominent display of the minister's garlic, lemon and beetroot remedy for combating HIV, has drawn unwanted global media attention to her unorthodox views that patients should be given a choice between using medicines or nutrition to hold the virus at bay.

SA has one of the world's worst HIV/AIDS epidemics, with one in nine people in the country living with the disease.

"I just move around (the conference halls) and people say 'your stall is great...'. We haven't shocked the world, we've told them the truth," Tshabalala-Msimang told South African delegates invited to a private function at the residence of SA's consul-general to Canada, Nogolide Nojozi, on Tuesday night.

"I don't mind to be called 'Dr Beetroot' " she said, to cheers and applause from the assembled guests, which included Deputy Correctional Services Minister Loretta Jacobus and Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya.

Tshabalala-Msimang said she had learnt that beetroot helped combat anaemia during her studies. "You can't tell me at this stage I must abandon what I learnt as a medical student," she said.

Tshabalala-Msimang said the controversial exhibition displayed antiretroviral medicines as well as vegetables. Two vials of pills were hurriedly added to the stand on Sunday after journalists posed questions about the absence of antiretroviral drugs.

Noting that she had attended two previous international AIDS conferences -- in Barcelona in 2004, and Bangkok this year -- the health minister said: "I have never, never, never been in a situation where SA has not been bashed."

However, it was important for SA to develop its own health-care policies, she said.

"After all, we as South Africans can think for ourselves," she said.

The minister said the world had failed to acknowledge SA for the strides it had made in combating HIV/AIDS and influencing approaches to the disease.

She claimed SA had forced the world to acknowledge the importance of nutrition in the fight against the disease. Referring to the International AIDS Conference held in Durban in 2000, she said: "Nobody wanted to hear anything about nutrition. But today, it's the theme of the conference and that's SA's (influence)."

Although the conference has several sessions devoted to nutrition, it was not a theme on any particular day.