TAC has released two key position papers on TB.

"How does a preventable, curable disease become the leading cause of all natural deaths in SA, and the leading cause of all AIDS-related mortalities on our continent? Well, first we take drug-sensitive TB, a perfectly curable form of tuberculosis, and mismanage it for decades in health structures with poor infection control, weak diagnostic capacity, insufficient education on TB, inadequate resources and minimal political commitment. We observe substandard cure rates and increasing mortality figures. Over time, our poorly functioning TB programmes are manufacturing drug-resistant TB strains — the result of inadequate or incomplete TB treatment — but we don't worry about this too much until multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB explodes in our faces." -- Paula Akugizibwe, AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa

A series of draft articles by Mark Heywood on politics and health.

South Africa's acclaimed HIV/AIDS National Strategic Plan (NSP) was endorsed by Cabinet on 3 May 2007. It was a fine example of how civil society and government can work together to alleviate the HIV epidemic. Here you can find the NSP itself and its costing annexure.

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Durban High Court orders access to ARV treatment for prisoners at Westville Prison

AIDS Law Project Analysis on HIV and Prisoners

• Implementing the HIV Operational Plan in Prisons (PDF)

• The National Strategic Plan and Prisons (Powerpoint)

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In May 2008, the High Court ruled against the South African National Defence Force's discriminatory policy of excluding HIV-positive persons from recruitment, external deployment and promotion in the military. The AIDS Law Project, representing the South African Security Forces Union and HIV-positive soldiers, had taken the SANDF to court because the matter is of national and international significance. The Court's order means that:

1. The SANDF can no longer automatically exclude HIV positive people from recruitment, external deployment and promotion;
2. That the individual applicants are entitled to immediate relief. In particular T.C.M. is to be employed as a trumpeter and Sipho Mthethwa is to be immediately reconsidered for external deployment; and
3. The SANDF must amend its health classification policy within six months to allow for individualised health assessments of recruits and current members of the armed forces.

Further resources:

What is AIDS denialism?

It is the promotion of one or more of the following pseudo-scientific views: (1) HIV does not cause AIDS, (2) the risks of antiretovirals outweigh their benefits and (3) there is not a large AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

Here we present links to documents debunking these myths. We also present links to documents showing the dire consequences of AIDS denialism.

Key documents explaining the science of HIV/AIDS

The Evidence that HIV Causes AIDS

Matthias Rath is the definitive charlatan. Armed with huge amounts of money, megalomania, a lack of conscience and most importantly, the support of South Africa's incompetent Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Rath has sown confusion in South Africa about the treatment and prevention of HIV. The Rath saga demonstrates how damaging politically-supported AIDS denialism is.

An article explaining what statistics we know about South Africa's AIDS epidemic and how we know them.