South African AIDS Activists Attack Health Care Divide

On Wednesday, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) launched a new initiative in the battle for universal AIDS treatment by calling for an end to inequity between South Africa's public and private health care systems. Mark Heywood, TAC's national treasurer, said the nation's former apartheid system lives on in its health care sector, where a small number of elite hospitals care mainly for wealthy white people, while overburdened public hospitals struggle to treat most black citizens. "In the next few weeks we will launch a visible campaign for what we will call a people's health service for a people's antiretroviral program," Heywood said. "It will involve putting forward a new vision of the health service… The private hospital sector will be targeted because we believe they are too expensive," Heywood said. The new campaign is to be finalized by month's end, Heywood said.

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