BY RICHARD PITHOUSE
DURBAN — On March 5, there were protests by AIDS activists around the world against the South African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association legal attack on South Africa's laws designed to make anti-AIDS medicines cheaper. I spoke to Promise Mthembu, the chief organiser of the Durban protest, and an activist with the Treatment Action Campaign.
Mthembu has been living with AIDS for six years. Like most South Africans, she can't afford anti-AIDS medicines. When she was first diagnosed she felt "very, very angry".
"That anger led me to be open about my HIV status. I was trying to find a way to accept that I would get sick and die. But when I got involved in the Treatment Action Campaign it really changed my thinking. I realised that there was a reason to hope."
Mthembu was working for the National Youth Commission. "But", she said, "the Youth Commission was in the president's office so it was impossible to speak about treatment". (South African President Thabo Mbeki denies that HIV causes AIDS.) So Promise joined the Treatment Action Campaign to "do advocacy work that addresses my needs and the needs of the 4 million other South Africans living with HIV".
Mthembu was the chief organiser of the 5000-strong Global March for Access to Treatment that preceded the 13th International AIDS Conference held in Durban last year. She also organised the smaller, but equally enthusiastic, Durban leg of the world protest against the PMA on March 5.
It is now widely accepted that AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence. There are drugs that can halve the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child. There are drugs that can drastically reduce the likelihood of infection after being raped by an HIV+ person. There are also drugs that can treat the opportunistic fungal infections that plague, and sometimes kill, people living with HIV. There are anti-retroviral drugs that can turn AIDS into a manageable condition. But a year's supply of anti-retrovirals is out of the reach of most of the South African people living with HIV.
It doesn't have to be this way. In Brazil, the government is able to provide free anti-retrovirals to every person who has been diagnosed with AIDS. Brazil can afford to provide anti-retrovirals to its people because the Brazilian government does not buy the medication from the giant pharmaceutical companies. The Brazilians manufacture their own generic versions of brand name drugs for a fraction of the cost at which the pharmaceutical companies sell them.
"The Brazilian program could be a model for South Africa. The Brazilian government has put their people first — it is not intimidated by the international trade laws", Mthembu said. "The South African government has not yet understood that treatment is a central part of the solution to HIV and AIDS. It has focused all its attention on prevention. The government is putting its international relations at the expense of us, the South African people.
"We have rights to health care and the government is obliged to provide treatment for the 4 million South Africans with HIV. They can't just let 10% of the population die."
"Solidarity with people living with AIDS must go beyond rhetoric and wearing a red ribbon. People need to join this struggle. Mass struggle defeated apartheid and we'll win the struggle for affordable medication the same way", Mthembu said.
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