"Treatment now" demand from AIDS activists

South Africa's AIDS activists have resumed a civil disobedience campaign to press the government to provide antiretroviral (ARV) drugs through the public health system to all HIV-positive people who need them. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and other AIDS activists took to the streets in the port city of Durban on Monday, marching from city hall to the international convention centre where South Africa's first national AIDS conference is being held. "Our mother who art in parliament, hallowed be thy minister of health. Thy freedom come. Thy will be done on HIV-positive people as it is in other countries," read one of the placards. In an attempt to shame the government into introducing a national AIDS treatment programme, the TAC earlier this year laid charges of culpable homicide against Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang over the 600 South Africans estimated to die every day of AIDS-related illnesses. "It's the same thing which has been repeated over and over again. What we are saying is simple: give women, parents and children ARVs," Prudence Mbele, director of the Positive Women's Network, told PlusNews. "We have never said we don't need antiretroviral drugs," Tshabalala-Msimang told the BBC this week. "I am saying now, thanks to our scientists as well, that we know that traditional and nutritional supplements work as well." The government has stressed the importance of nutrition as a first line of defence against the HI virus. But, "we still need drugs, hand in hand with nutrition," Mbele said. TAC chair Zackie Achmat - who for years refused to take ARVs until they were made available to all HIV-positive people – told the crowd of protestors he had now been forced to begin a drug regimen. "We cannot let Manto or Thabo [President Mbeki] kill any more people," he said. But Joe Manciya, an activist and former member of the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS, questioned whether this conference was an appropriate platform for protest. "This is not Manto's forum, or anybody's forum. This is for all of us - why be negative and uncooperative?" he asked. Manciya urged activists to come forward with "practical solutions". Earlier this year, 19 projects providing ARVs in the country came together to establish the Generic Antiretroviral Procurement Project (GARPP). Managing director Wilbert Bannenberg said GARPP sought to improve access to ARVs through the promotion of cheaper generic drugs. The initiative sources generics approved by the Medicines Control Council (MCC) and supplies its members throughout the country. The recently formed Project anticipates many obstacles, but the most pressing is expected to be the demand for the generic drugs. For now, people living with HIV/AIDS can benefit from GARPP by becoming participants in one of the NGO-led ARV therapy projects, such as the Médecins Sans Frontières initiative in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha. As Bannenberg put it, GARPP might not be the perfect solution, but ARV therapy had to be a success as so many in South Africa depended on it. The country accounts for 10 percent of the global burden of HIV infection. Meanwhile, the MCC is considering deregistering the drug Nevirapine, the only ARV the government has approved so far. The Council rejected a Ugandan study and has given the drug's German manufacturer 90 days to prove it is safe. AIDS activists stress the long-term cost savings of a national AIDS programme to the government, and point to Nevirapine as a good example. Nevirapine, which cuts the transmission of HIV from positive pregnant women to their babies by 50 percent, costs around US $4 per infant. According to the news agency SAPA, the government will have to pay $80 a month in treatment costs for every HIV-positive child.