HEALTH: Charges Laid against Ministers for Failure to Provide AIDS Drugs

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anthony Stoppard

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 25 2003 (IPS) - Charges of culpable homicide have been laid against the South African minister of health, Manto Tshabala-Msimang, and the minister of trade and industry, Alec Erwin, by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) – an organisation demanding the provision of anti-AIDS drugs to poor people living with the disease.

The TAC has formally laid the charges against the health minister for her failure to make anti-retrovirals – drugs commonly accepted to ease the impact of the AIDS and reduce the transmission of HIV – freely available in the public health system.

The campaign has charged Erwin, because they accuse him of failing to move fast enough to license local pharmaceutical companies to manufacture generic anti-retorvirals.

Although the charges have been formally instituted at police stations, the appropriate prosecuting authorities must still decide whether or not to take them further.

Faced with the criminal charges and threats of a civil disobedience campaign by TAC in support of their demands, the South African government has launched a campaign to highlight their efforts to fight the AIDS epidemic that is gripping the country.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 4.5 million South Africans are living with HIV and AIDS. TAC reckons about 600 South Africans die of AIDS-related diseases everyday, and that this figure could be drastically reduced if the ministers cleared the way to make anti-retrovirals freely available in the public health system.

The criminal charges against the two cabinet ministers are part of a civil disobedience campaign, launched by TAC on Mar 21 – Human Rights Day in South Africa – in support of their demands.

After laying – or trying to lay – the charges in police stations across South Africa, TAC activists demanded to be arrested. In Johannesburg, more than 100 activists were reported arrested and charged with attending an illegal gathering. They were released within an hour.

Although they have remained tight-lipped about their plans, the TAC has made it clear that further acts of civil disobedience are in the pipeline, including the possible occupation and disruption of the offices of the Department of Health. They plan to have 600 activists arrested during their civil disobedience campaign to symbolise each of the South Africans estimated to die of AIDS-related diseases every day.

The arrest of anti-HIV and AIDS activists will create political difficulties for the Government – especially since its scepticism about anti-retrovirals is not very popular among the mainstream medical community and health activists.

The TAC has the support of many of the political allies of the government, like the 1.8-million-strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). There are also differences in the ranks of the ruling African National Congress and the government about the widespread provision of anti-retrovirals in the public health care system. As a result, it is politically awkward for the government to be seen to be acting against TAC activists.

The TAC is demanding that the government ”make an irreversible and unequivocal” commitment to providing anti-retrovirals in the public health-care system and sign an agreement with business, labour and community organisations on a National HIV and AIDS Prevention and Treatment Plan.

Controversially, the South African government has questioned whether HIV cause AIDS and has persistently cast doubts on the effectiveness of anti-retrovirals. It has indicated that rather than provide anti-retrovirals to people living with AIDS, it prefers to direct its anti-HIV and AIDS efforts towards education and nutritional programmes.

Internationally, it is commonly accepted that while anti-retrovirals are dangerous, they are presently the best drugs available to ease the impact of the disease and reduce the spread of HIV.

The South African minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, added fuel to the fire when he commented in Parliament last week that spending money on anti-retrovirals was a ”waste of very limited resources”. Manuel also insisted that he was misquoted in reports that said he described anti-retrovirals as ”a lot of voodoo”.

But, faced with renewed criticism of its stance on anti-retrovirals, after a Cabinet meeting last week, the government issued an update of its programme to fight the epidemic, including details of its plans to make anti-AIDS drugs available to South Africans, and substantially increasing the budget for fighting HIV and AIDS.

The statement says: ”Cabinet reviewed the implementation of the comprehensive strategic plan to fight HIV/AIDS, based on the premise that HIV causes AIDS. Government calls on all South Africans to lend a hand in Partnership against AIDS. Our energies should be spent fighting AIDS, not one another.”

Over the past few days, both the TAC and the government have taken out full page adverts in newspapers, explaining their different position on the best way to fight the epidemic.