SOUTH AFRICA: Thousands march to demand access to AIDS treatment
The prices of HIV/AIDS drugs across the globe are unaffordable. Poor people are dying because they cannot buy drugs or get access to quality health care. Drug prices must come down. Health care budgets must be increased. This was the message to drug companies and governments of the March for Access to HIV/AIDS Treatment on July 9 at the start of the 13th World Aids Conference in Durban.
South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the HealthGap Coalition in the United States called the march to protest the unnecessary and premature deaths of millions of people with HIV/AIDS across the world. It was endorsed by 230 organisations from 33 countries. Supporters include trade union, church, aid and non-governmental organisations.
AIDS-related illnesses have claimed the lives of about 18 million people worldwide. In South Africa, there are about four million sufferers with an estimated 1600 new infections every day.
"Most of us die only because we are poor", said Promise Mthembu, a single mother with HIV. Mthembu is the TAC's march coordinator. She points to the fact that more than 200 organisations representing millions of people across the world endorsed the call to march. These organisations and individuals demand the lowering of all HIV/AIDS drug prices and the right of people with HIV/AIDS to nutrition, health care, education and employment. "Our unity across the globe is a brake on the excessive power and profiteering of drug companies."
Mark Heywood, director of the AIDS Law Project and deputy chairperson of TAC said the march symbolised "the efforts of our communities globally to take control of an epidemic that governments have failed to halt and that drug companies profiteer from."
The TAC on July 5 said the South African government had "spectacularly" failed to come up with a treatment plan for people with HIV/AIDS, leaving most of the country's four million sufferers without access to life-giving medication.
Controversy has raged in South Africa over the African National Congress government's refusal to provide the drug AZT to pregnant mothers to prevent the passing of HIV to the unborn. South African President Thabo Mbeki has justified this by claiming the side-effects of AZT are dangerous and require more study. Mbeki will be present at the official opening of the conference.
The TAC on July 5 said it expected the government to make concrete decisions at the Durban conference over the issue of AZT and cheaper drugs, including approval of the TAC's demand to supply AZT to pregnant women with HIV.
Asia Russell of HealthGAP told a press conference in Durban on July 2 that millions of people with AIDS were being left to die while pharmaceutical companies remained bent on making a profit from selling drugs to the 5% who could afford them. "The cushion of profits is what is standing in the way of people getting these life saving drugs."
Russell said access to treatment is a human right. Governments and drug companies that tell sufferers that the drugs are too expensive and that they should forget about treatment are lying, she said. This was a myth created by pharmaceutical companies who view profit as more important than people's lives.
Cati Vawda of the Children's Rights Centre in Durban points out that "access to treatment is central to the rights of children with HIV. Where parents or care givers have HIV/AIDS, the quality of their lives and that of their children will be improved by gaining access to anti-retroviral medications. This will also assist the already over-burdened welfare system to provide better care to those who are already orphaned."
Ncumisa Nongogo of the AIDS Legal Network and a member of the South African National Council on AIDS said: "Central to all our demands for treatment is the understanding that it will reinforce prevention efforts. The march will focus attention on the need for anti-retrovirals to reduce mother-to-child transmission and to protect rape survivors."
Zackie Achmat, chairperson of TAC, said: "For those of us with HIV/AIDS, this march is a beginning. Our friends, families, health care workers will be given hope. But, this will not be false hopes or promises — it will be hope rooted in action. The message that everyone across the world can and must act now to lower drug prices and build up health care infrastructure will be taken to communities across Africa and the world!".
[Promise Mthembu can be contacted by email at <msf-tac@mweb.co.za> or <info@tac.org.za>. Visit the TAC web site at .]
BY NATHAN GEFFEN