Treatment Action Campaign

Today is World AIDS Day and this year we are marking 30 years since the discovery of AIDS. We can claim great successes in the response over the last decade. We have seen a shift from where people were dying with no access to treatment to about 7 million on treatment globally. But last week all that progress was put at risk.

Today, 1 December 2011, World AIDS Day, TAC and SECTION27 join the rest of South Africa and the world in welcoming the launch of a new five year National Strategic Plan on HIV, TB and STIs (2012-2016). The plan’s target is that by 2016 80% of people are on ARV treatment, that deaths from TB have been halved, and that new HIV infections are cut by 50%. This plan is unique, because millions of people’s lives depend on its successful implementation. Already there are over a million people on treatment. By the time the plan is complete that number must be three million.

The TAC is an award winning South African social movement campaigning to save the lives of people living with HIV and TB. In the 12 years since it was established TAC has helped to save and better millions of people’s lives in South Africa. It has also contributed to the deepening of democracy in South Africa, through its use of the courts, advocacy and promotion of human rights constitutionalism. Internationally, TAC has been one of the most influential AIDS activist movements; an organisation that has catalysed action on HIV/AIDS across the world. Yet today TAC faces a real threat of imminent closure due to a dire funding crisis.

Premier Helen Zille is once more raising the spectre of criminalising HIV transmission. This is an old debate.