After Long Delay, South Africa Begins Offering Treatment to AIDS Patients

Interview with Dudu Dlamini, of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

More people are living and dying with AIDS in South Africa than in any other country. More than a million have died so far and hundreds of thousands of children have been orphaned. An estimated one out of nine people over age 2 is infected. The impact of such statistics on the social and economic fabric of South Africa is almost unimaginable.

In December 1998, the Treatment Action Campaign, or TAC, was launched to demand that the government of President Thabo Mbeki provide anti-retroviral treatment for people with HIV/AIDS, including HIV-positive pregnant women. Mbeki's position had long been that poverty, not HIV, causes AIDS, and he appointed ministers of health who promoted their own unscientific theories and treatments. Under diplomatic and political pressure, the government pledged a roll-out of anti-retrovirals beginning April 1, but later said the start date would be postponed until June because it would take that long to sign contracts with drug companies. In mid-March, TAC threatened to take the government to court to force implementation, and on April 1, a limited distribution of drugs began for the most seriously ill AIDS patients.

In late March, Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Dudu Dlamini, treatment project coordinator with TAC, at her office in Johannesburg. She contracted HIV from her abusive former husband and gave birth to a baby who died of AIDS at the age of 2. She went public with her case in 1999 and began treatment in a drug trial that has restored her health. Dlamini spoke about the government's position on AIDS, in light of upcoming national elections on April 14, and her hopes for tackling the disease in South Africa.

For more information, visit South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign website at www.tac.org.za

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