South Africa: 100 TAC Leaders Die in Four Months

Zackie Achmat, chair of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, said the drug activist organization lost 100 of its leaders to AIDS between March 20 and July 31, 2003. Most of those who died were women under age 24, he told Pretoria Technikon students after accepting a communicator of the year award. Only one of the deceased had been taking antiretroviral drugs. The activist renewed his call for the South African government to reduce AIDS drug prices by issuing licenses for the manufacturing of generic drugs. Achmat said he was confident the government would act "urgently" on the national treatment plan presented to Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang last week, and he urged South Africans to practice safe sex.

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