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Government asleep on HIV/AIDS - activists

    JOHANNESBURG

    More than 5,000 South African AIDS activists converged on parliament this week, demanding that 200,000 HIV-positive people gain access to free anti-AIDS drugs by the start of 2006.

    The AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), handed over a memorandum to government, urging President Thabo Mbeki to "wake up" to the pandemic.

    According to TAC, the government was far short of its target of having 53,000 people at 113 state-accredited health centres on antiretroviral therapy by March 2005.

    Agence France-Presse quoted TAC chairman Zackie Achmat as saying: "We are proud of our 10 years of democracy, but if we want our next 10 years to be good, we need to wake up to HIV/AIDS."

    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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