By Andrew Quinn

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 18 (Reuters) South Africa's drive to promote garlic, lemon and beetroot as AIDS treatments has fanned anger at home as activists accuse the government of misleading public opinion at a global conference on the epidemic.

South Africa's exhibit at the Toronto AIDS conference, featuring displays of garlic and other natural foods along with anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, was stormed by supporters of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa's most vocal AIDS activist group, local news reports said today.

''We feel that the display of garlic and lemon is ... an insult to the South African AIDS crisis,'' TAC General Secretary Sipho Mthathi told SABC radio from Toronto.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has made nutrition and natural remedies a cornerstone of her AIDS policy, infuriating the TAC and other activist groups who say ARVs are the only way South Africa can hope to treat the country's estimated five million HIV-positive people.

Health Ministry spokesman Sibani Mngadi said the Toronto protesters had attempted to seize the garlic and other foodstuffs from the display, damaging part of the exhibit.

''The minister of health represents government policy,'' Mngadi told the SABC, accusing the TAC of being ''preoccupied'' with ARV drugs.

''There are anti-retrovirals displayed there, which is one option that is available to people at a particular level of the progression of HIV and AIDS ... for those people with CD4 counts higher than 200, we are saying that they need to deal with maintaining their health.'' Experts generally say that patients should start treatment when their CD4 cell count, a measure of immune system response, drops below 350.

Both President Thabo Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang have in the past expressed doubts about the efficacy of ARV drugs, and campaigners such as the TAC say the government drug programme launched in 2003 remains insufficient.

South African officials say their drug programme now reaches more than 120,000 people and is among the biggest in the world.

The TAC's Mthati said South Africa's official prescription of garlic, beetroot and olive oil as a frontline defence against HIV/AIDS was costing lives.

''The health minister has in the country and outside consistently overemphasised her cocktails over what is scientifically tested and well-known medicine,'' Mthati said.

''We need a health minister who is going to promote scientifically based medicines ... and none of these untested alternatives she is supporting actually have any credence.'' The health minister has maintained that good nutrition helps people with AIDS and that garlic can boost the immune system.

REUTERS AB BS0923