South African AIDS activist group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), said they were planning to take the health department to court if it did not roll out antiretroviral drugs by the end of March 2004.
The group recently expressed concern over the delay in the government's rollout of the drugs — the core of the "Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care" - released by the cabinet in November last year.
Mark Heywood, the TAC national spokesman, told the UN news service, PlusNews: "We are putting together an expert team to monitor the rollout and if, without good reason, no progress has been made, TAC will consider an urgent legal application to compel the government to comply with the plan that it spent 15 months developing, and has not seriously begun."
Estimates suggest that over 500,000 people are currently in need of treatment in South Africa, but only 1,500 people, all in the Western Cape Province, are receiving it at the moment.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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