South African HIV treatment activists start civil disobedience programme

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HIV treatment activists in South Africa are using the civil disobedience tactics employed by the governing ANC to bring down the apartheid regime to highlight the refusal of the ruling party to provide anti-HIV drugs.

A programme of illegal, but peaceful protests, organised by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)commenced last week with a demonstration in township of Sharpeville where police massacred anti-apartheid demonstrators in 1960.

Simultaneous protests took place in Cape Town and Durban, with TAC activists accusing health minister Manto Tshabalala Msimang and trade and industry minister Alec Erwin of manslaughter for the government’s refusal to provide antiretrovirals in state hospitals or allow the production of generic HIV drugs in South Africa.

Glossary

generic

In relation to medicines, a drug manufactured and sold without a brand name, in situations where the original manufacturer’s patent has expired or is not enforced. Generic drugs contain the same active ingredients as branded drugs, and have comparable strength, safety, efficacy and quality.

Police men have been handed with “people’s dockets” calling for an investigation into the deaths of “many thousands of people who have died from AIDS or AIDS related illnesses, and whose deaths could have been prevented had they been given access to treatments."

The campaign of civil disobedience is set to intensify over the next few weeks and has the support of trade unions, churches and the South African Medical Association.