November 3, 2006
A NEW BEGINNING IN SOUTH AFRICA
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In solidarity with South African activists, women in Washington, DC call for the South African Health Minister's dismissal after she said she had more faith in garlic and lemons than ARVs. Global Day of Action, August 2006. |
It seems impossible that the government of the country with the highest number of people living with AIDS in the world would still be able to deny it has a problem. But for years, South African activists have had to fight the wholesale denial of the AIDS epidemic by South African officials. Now- new voices from the South African government are calling for an end to the cycle of death, illness and new infection.
At the end of October at the Civil Society HIV Prevention and Treatment Congress co-hosted by Cosatu, the South African Council of Churches, the SANGO Coalition and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the South African Deputy Minister of Health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, and the Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngucka made unambiguous commitments to scaling-up prevention and treatment and to work in genuine partnership with the AIDS community.
"We are convinced that no-one in our government can ever equivocate on the causes of HIV again. Nor will there be disputes on the efficacy of ARVs or a counter-posing of nutrition to treatment from our national government. Any attempt to resurrect those painful debates of the last eight years will be resisted by the whole of our society not just by TAC," wrote Zackie Achmat, founder of TAC.
AIDS activists worldwide - including Housing Works and many Update readers - have stood in solidarity with the South Africans fighting to narrow the epic gap between reality and national policy. This summer, international protests called for health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to be sacked. At the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, global activists supported TAC's take-over of the South Africa booth.
Square one at last
Although it has taken years of relentless organizing- this breakthrough has brought South Africa to square one. It is a long road from here to universal access to prevention, treatment and care, but the AIDS community is demanding, pushing and ultimately leading the government toward a comprehensive response.
"TAC will be campaigning to reduce the prices of ARVS, including BMS's efavirenz (Sustiva) and Abbott's heat-stable Kaletra, and to introduce greater generic competition. The mother to child transmission prevention program is seriously under-performing in rural areas of South Africa. Treatment in prisons still lags behind the country as a whole. Condoms need to be made available in prisons and schools," said Lucio Verani, volunteer for Friends of TAC- North American network.
Experience has made the AIDS community wary of political promises, and activists in South Africa and around the world are prepared to hold the officials to this vision of a realistic and responsive South African government. The first test: a new National Strategic plan on HIV and AIDS (2007-2011) to be unveiled on World AIDS Day, December 1, 006.
AIDS DENIALISM? FOR REAL?
South African activists have had to stem the dangerous tide of mistrust in ARVs and myths about prevention rolling down from the highest levels of government. They had to haul President Thabo Mbeki to court to get ARVs provided through the public health system. As of 2006, 265,000 people in South Africa are on meds, but it is estimated by UNAIDS that at the end of December 2005 that the overall number of people who needed treatment was 983,000.
To read more about the history of the South African government's notorious lack-of-response to AIDS, visit Debunking AIDS Denialism by the Treatment Action Campaign.