Treatment Action Campaign and HIV Positive

TAC was appropriately established on December 10, 1998 - International Human Rights Day - to mobilize national support for access to treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS. The issue of access to life-saving treatment has clearly become a human rights issue. The most recent UNAIDS/WHO report estimates that 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS and of this total, 29.4 million (70%) live in Southern Africa . Everyday, 600 people in South Africa die from AIDS-related illnesses. Most of these lives could have been saved by Antiretroviral medications (ARVs). TAC's primary objective is to ensure greater access to treatment for all South Africans, by raising public awareness and understanding about issues surrounding the availability, affordability and use of HIV treatments.

TAC homepage

"The Treatment Action Campaign's contribution to the struggle against HIV/AIDS in South Africa is unparalleled, and has also contributed in a major way to global awareness of disparities in treatment access." - Drew Altman, President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation

TAC has mobilized support and achieved results through public protests, presentations to Parliament, workshops and seminars, and by working closely with Labor unions and religious groups. In 2001, TAC brought a successful constitutional court action compelling government to make the HIV medication, Nevirapine, available through the public health sector for the prevention of transmission of HIV from mothers to their children. This victory helped to initiate the creation of the 2003 national government's treatment and prevention plan to provide anti-retroviral therapy to the public sector.

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The eye catching T-shirts are proudly worn by TAC activists and supporters at marches, rallies, on the job, and across the country. They have served to counter the stigma associated with HIV, while spreading the message that we can address HIV in a positive manner and that, most importantly, we are all "HIV positive" and affected by HIV

TAC rally (videoclip translation from Xhosa to English)

Woman 1: "TAC is an organization that fights for human rights. TAC teaches people about where to find treatment at the clinic."

Woman 2: "TAC teaches us and helps us to find ARV's and fights for our rights in order to receive ARV's. So in that case, we do a lot in Khayelitsha. For that we want to say 'thank you'."

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Khayelitsha is a local black township outside of Cape Town where TAC and the South African government have implemented an ARV distribution program. Antiretroviral medications (ARVs) are drugs used to treat HIV. Approximately 6.5 million Southeastern South Africans speak the Xhosa dialect, making it the second most spoken language in South Africa after Zulu.