Tac IN time

Activist Gugu Dlamini, who had disclosed her HIV status publicly speaking on radio in Zulu on World AIDS Day, was beaten to death in KwaMashu. Her death prompted the creation of TAC’s iconic HIV-positive t-shirts, used as a tool to break down the secrecy, shame and stigma that surrounded HIV. The t-shirts brandish the words “HIV-POSITIVE” onto the wearer’s chest. A photo of Gugu was printed on the back of TAC’s first t-shirts. Today the t-shirts have become an iconic symbol in South African society, representing the struggle for human rights.

TAC marches to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, calling for a national prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme.

Médecins Sans Frontières establishes the first antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme in Khayelitsha.

5,000 people marched to the opening of the International AIDS Conference in Durban, demanding that treatment be made available.

TAC is admitted as “friend of the court” opposing the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA) after 40 drug companies sue South Africa for trying to improve access to medicines. Soon after TAC is admitted, and following international outcry, the PMA withdraws their case.

The Constitutional Court rules in favour of TAC, forcing government to provide nevirapine to pregnant mothers.

Nelson Mandela put on the iconic purple and white “HIV POSITIVE” T-shirt during a visit to Khayelitsha. In that moment he became one of us and made a powerful statement against stigma, at the same time sending a message to the then denialist government that people living with HIV are part of this country and should be given lifesaving treatment.

Edward Mabunda died of AIDS on 9 April 2003 at the age of 36. He was a TAC leader and a poet. He was one of over 600 people that died of AIDS that day and every other day in South Africa. Most of them died because they could not access lifesaving ARVs.

Following referral of TAC’s Competition Commission complaint to the Competition Tribunal, Boehringer Ingelheim and GlaxoSmithKline grant licenses for generic manufacture and sale of the ARV medicines lamivudine and zidovudine in South Africa and also allowing supply to other sub-Saharan countries.

Government slowly begins to roll out antiretroviral treatment (ARVs).

To respond to the criminal justice system’s failure to address violence against women, TAC launches campaign against gender-based violence.


Rubber bullets shot at TAC members in Queenstown
. 700 TAC members marched from Freedom Square in the town centre to Frontier Hospital. Even nurses joined us. Our demands? Twenty more people on antiretrovirals every month . Mrs Zephe was ‘away’ so we staged a peaceful sit-in in the hospital corridors. Mr Mosia, the hospital manager, instructed the police to remove us for ‘disturbing the patients’.”

10,000 young people marched for HIV prevention in King Williams Town, demanding comprehensive life-skills education and condoms in schools.

TAC protests at the South African government stand at the Toronto AIDS Conference, sticking up posters saying “Fire Manto”. 

The National Strategic Plan on HIV, TB and STIs is adopted
 by Cabinet and SANAC.

5,000 people from TAC and ARASA marched through the streets of Cape Town at the onset of the 38th Annual Union World Conference on Lung Health to demand better TB education, prevention, treatments and cures.

TAC launches Competition Commission complaint against MSD (Merck) for unlawfully refusing to grant licenses to allow for generic production of and affordable access to generic efavirenz.

Government adopts new PMTCT protocols
. TAC welcomed the improvements over the old protocol and urged health facilities with capacity to begin implementing it, while noting concerns that the revised guidelines, while better than the 2003 one, were still out of sync with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) strongest recommendations.

TAC supports a submission made to the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) on the health situation of refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented persons.

Victory in the court against South African National Defence Force (SANDF) for banning HIV positive soldiers. The court ruled against the defence force policy that no one with HIV could be recruited, deployed externally or promoted.

Following TAC’s Competition Commission complaint, MSD grants voluntary licenses for production and use in South Africa of generic versions of ARV medicine efavirenz, leading to massive price reductions

After years of legal wrangling, the Cape Town High Court finally ruled in June 2008 that Rath’s advertising was false, misleading and unlawful. The court also declared that he was unlawfully distributing medicines and conducting unauthorised clinical trials. The Minister of Health was held responsible for not enforcing the Medicines Act. This was a major victory for TAC and its allies.

Life-threatening antiretroviral treatment shortage in the Free State as the department of Health issues orders to “stop putting new clients on ARVs”. The ARV moratorium resulted in hundreds of avoidable deaths. TAC and the AIDS Law Project put pressure on government to lift the moratorium through letters, pickets and engagement with the South African National AIDS Council. The Free State AIDS Coalition was formed, bringing together civil society organisations in the province. In March 2009, the moratorium was finally lifted.

New government signals an end to denialism and announces improved treatment guidelines, massive scale-up of ARVs begins

TAC strongly condemned homophobia following the inhuman and homophobic legislation being proposed in Uganda and a wider crackdown against gays and lesbians in other African countries. 

Revised ART treatment guidelines are adopted. South Africa now has the biggest treatment programme in the world, one million people are receiving treatment, but another million go without.

TAC holds it national congress, resolving that the struggle for treatment is far from over.

All people with HIV with CD4 counts below 350 are now eligible for antiretroviral treatment.

TAC, MSF and SECTION27 jointly launch the Fix the Patent Laws campaign on the 10 year anniversary of the Doha Declaration.

TAC demands the phase out of stavudine (d4T) as a first line treatment in the public healthcare sector. This followed WHO guidance from 2010 that d4T should be phased out in favour of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) given the serious side effects from d4T. However progress in switching everyone in South Africa is slow.

After investigating the collapse of the Mthatha Depot in the Eastern Cape, TAC and MSF provided the resources to clear the backlog of orders of medical supplies and in a relatively short period, the depot was working again.

Landmark Dudley Lee Constitutional Court ruling establishes prisoners’ rights to access TB screening, diagnosis, and treatment. The ruling found the Department of Correctional Services liable for failing to prevent a severe tuberculosis outbreak at Pollsmoor Prison. TAC was earlier admitted as a friend of the court or amicus curiae. This is a landmark case that highlights the State’s responsibility for ensuring that the constitutional rights of detainees are maintained and safeguarded.

TAC pickets outside Pollsmoor Prison on World TB Day to raise concerns about the high rate of TB infection in South Africa’s prisons.

Community members in Lusikisiki complain as they must go to the clinic to be treated in two tents without electricity at Village Clinic, with only a pit latrine toilet. TAC files a lawsuit against the Eastern Cape’s health department for failing to address dire conditions at Village Clinic. TAC listed Minister of Health Motsoaledi as a respondent who agreed that circumstances at the clinic were unacceptable – sidelining the provincial health department to arrange for the erection of a temporary structure to house the clinic, while tabling plans for an entirely new building.

TAC provinces coordinated a nationwide day of action to demand an end to the ongoing medicine stockout crisis ravaging across South Africa – as well as to demand urgent action to address the deterioration of quality healthcare services in various parts of the country.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) releases the draft national policy on intellectual property (IP) to begin the process of improving access to medicines through patent law reform.

The Stop Stockouts Project (SSP) is launched to address stockouts and shortages of medicines in the country. The project was established following the Mthatha depot crisis in the Eastern Cape by TAC, SECTION27, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP), Rural Health Doctors Association of Southern Africa (RuDASA), and the Southern African HIV Clinician Society. The first annual SSP report is published, providing concrete evidence from a nationwide survey of medicines stockouts.

1,000 comrades from TAC and SECTION27 march to government’s World AIDS Day event in Piet Retief to demand the Deputy President address the healthcare crisis, food shortages, medicine stockouts, and lack of healthcare professionals affecting the country – particularly in Gert Sibande where antenatal HIV prevalence is nearly 50% in some sub districts.

TAC hold pickets outside pharmaceutical company MSD and the Innovative Pharmaceutical Association of South Africa (IPASA) to demand accountability as both are implicated in the #PharmaGate scandal.

MEC Sicelo Gqobana is removed as MEC of Health in the Eastern Cape, following ongoing calls by TAC and the Eastern Cape Health Crisis Action Coalition members and after failing to address any of the challenges in the healthcare system, or meet with activists to listen to the issues.  

TAC organises a national day of action, with our main focus will be in Bloemfontein in the Free State – the province facing the highest levels of stockouts of lifesaving TB and HIV drugs. 

3,500 community healthcare workers (CHWs) are dismissed without warning or cause in the Free State by MEC of Health Benny Malakoane.

TAC & SECTION27 get delegates to the South African TB Conference to vote if TB and drug-resistant TB should be declared a Public Health Emergency. They vote yes. Health Minister Motsoaledi abstains.

127 Community Healthcare Workers (CHWs) and TAC comrades are arrested after holding a peaceful night vigil outside Bophelo House (the Free State Health Department), where they protested their unfair dismissal and the province’s poor response to the collapse of the Free State healthcare system. There was no satisfactory explanation as to why they were arrested and incarcerated for 36 hours. They are charged with ‘”attending a prohibited gathering” under legislation used to prohibit such gatherings under Apartheid.

The #BopheloHouse127 appear in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court. TAC holds a night vigil ahead of the court appearance, followed by a march to the court.

TAC stands with civil society at the Union Lung Conference calling for governments to #CoughUpTheTBMoney – tripling money for TB research – and calling for additional TB funding from the Global Fund.

Facing a funding crisis and the prospect of closing, TAC launches a global fundraising campaign to #SaveTAC. Hundreds of individual donations are received, large and small. 60 world-class scientists and researchers, including Nobel Laureate and the discoverer of the Ebola virus, joined together to pen an appeal to global donors.

People Living With Cancer – a South African support group representing thousands of patients – joined the Fix the Patent Laws campaign.

The trial of the 118 community healthcare workers (CHWs) and TAC members arrested on 10 July 2014 began in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court. TAC holds a night vigil and marches to the court ahead of proceedings.

TAC leads 5,000 people in landmark #WeDieOfTB march to parliament demanding that MPs get tested for TB, and that Parliament holds government departments to account on TB.

Results of START trial show that all people living with HIV should start ARVs as soon as possible to prevent a worsening of health.

Twelve more patient organisations join the Fix the Patent Laws campaign, calling for progressive patent law reforms in South Africa.

More than 60 people from the Free State testify to the horrors in accessing healthcare at the “People’s Commission of Inquiry into the Free State Health System” in Bloemfontein, organised by TAC. The provincial health system had been in crisis for several years, facing more stockouts of essential medicines and supplies than any other province. Each day there were new reports of patients facing inadequate, often undignified and inhumane, and sometimes altogether suspended services. However, the Free State provincial government continued to deny there was a crisis.

TAC leads 1,000 mothers, pregnant women and activists in a march to the Western Cape Provincial Parliament to demand urgent action to address the ongoing problems in accessing quality maternal and obstetric care services in the province.

Commissioners Thembeka Gwagwa, Thokozile Madonko, and Bishop Paul Verryn release damning “Free State in Chains” report based on evidence collected at the People’s Commission of Inquiry into the Free State Healthcare System.

TAC holds pickets in Ermelo and Witbank to demand an end to discrimination of sex workers and LGBTQIA+ community members by the police.

TAC and the Fix the Patent Laws campaign picket outside Roche to highlight the excessive price charged for breast cancer medicine trastuzumab. In the private sector, a 12-month course of Herceptin costs approximately R485,800, or more if higher dosing is required. Roche is able to charge such a high price as it holds multiple patents on the drug, which may block cheaper biosimilars from being sold in South Africa until 2033.

TAC leads People’s Health Assemblies across the country at district, provincial, and national level to assess the state of healthcare in the country.

TAC leads a march of over 8,000 people through the streets of Durban demanding #treatment4all across the world as the International AIDS Conference is held in Durban, 16 years after the landmark 2000 conference.

Johnny Clegg had a benefit concert for TAC during the International AIDS Conference in Durban last week. TAC’s choir, the Generics, also opened the event. It was a magical night, with comrades reminiscing, celebrating and thinking about the way forward. We handed out awards to Mandisa Dlamini, Vuyiseka Dubula, Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and Johnny Clegg.

Hundreds of TAC comrades marched to Thelle Mogoerane Hospital to highlight the ongoing crisis facing the hospital and demand urgent intervention by the provincial health department.

TAC welcomes an announcement by the Minister of Health that all people living with HIV in South Africa can start ARVs regardless of CD4 count.

TAC & SECTION27 engage in a fact-finding mission at hospitals across the Free State. Reports uncovered serious problems that put people’s right to access healthcare in jeopardy.

In a major victory, Benny Malakoane is removed as MEC of Health in the Free State – TAC campaigned for his removal for more than two years. Under Malakoane’s watch the public healthcare system in the province went from crisis to crisis.

TAC launches #ClinicsInCrisis campaign to demand better local health services. The campaign is launched with a public dialogue in Khujwana, Limpopo that hears testimonies from community members about the dysfunction in the local clinic.

Comrade Tobeka Daki dies of cancer after leading our campaign for access to trastuzumab.

TAC holds a night vigil in Daveyton to hear how community members are struggling to access healthcare. The following morning, TAC marches to the government’s World AIDS Day “celebration” to hand a memorandum to the Minister of Health and Deputy President.

The “Tobeka Daki Campaign for Access to Trastuzumab” is launched at a global day of action demanding access to breast cancer treatment. 108 organisations sign a memorandum to pharmaceutical company Roche demanding they drop the price of trastuzumab.

TAC launches a fact-finding mission into the state of hospitals across Gauteng after the collapse of the roof at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital injures five people.

News reports emerge of numerous women having been brutally murdered. TAC condemns these hate crimes and calls for urgent action to address patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and violence against women and LGBTQIA+ communities in our society.

TAC’s national congress resolves that it is time to fix the broken healthcare system, demanding new focus and energy in the struggle for dignity and life!

The long awaited intellectual property (IP) policy is finally released by Cabinet after 6 years of campaigning – a major victory for TAC & the Fix the Patent Laws campaign #FixPatentLaw

Life Esidimeni arbitration hearings relating to the deaths of 141 people take place over 45 days with 60 witnesses, including senior government officials. TAC calls for former Gauteng MEC for Health Qedani Mahlangu to testify.

While government “celebrates” World AIDS Day, TAC releases findings from a survey conducted across 254 clinics in the country. The results confirm that our clinics – plagued with poor TB infection control, long waiting times, dirty toilets, shortages of staff, and medicine stockouts – are in crisis. Instead of attending extravagant and expensive World AIDS Day celebrations – with money that could have paid for more health workers, new equipment, or even facility refurbishment – TAC urges politicians to join the real struggle for decent healthcare, where it matters, on the ground.

The first “People’s COP” is launched to tell PEPFAR where people living with HIV wanted the millions of dollars of annual funding to be prioritised. It is launched at a community meeting, where community members spoke openly to United States Ambassador Birx about the challenges in trying to get your HIV treatment or HIV prevention options in South Africa’s clinics.

TAC monitors the state of hundreds of clinics that have been adopted by our branches. The results reveal a litany of challenges: long waiting times, staff shortages, stockouts of medicines, poor TB infection control, and much more. The dysfunction is documented in 7 provincial State of Health reports, sent to health departments for urgent action.

After nine years of development, the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) finally published the Intellectual Property Policy of the Republic of South Africa, Phase I. The policy was adopted by cabinet and as such represents official government policy, and has the potential to herald a new era in access to medicines for South Africa. This marks a major victory for the Fix the Patent Laws campaign after 7 years of campaigning.

Violent service delivery and governance protests erupted in the North West, and many clinics and hospitals faced strike action. Some clinics closed as healthcare workers feared going to work. Strikes at the medicine depot meant medicines also went undelivered. TAC urgently visited the province on a fact-finding mission to understand the impact of this on clinic users. Afterwards TAC resolved to set up branches and establish a presence in the province.

TAC protests the major bed shortage at Khayelitsha District Hospital in the Western Cape where people are reported as sleeping on the floors of a hospital at full capacity.

TAC turns 20. We mark our 20th anniversary with an all-night vigil at the Women’s Jail on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg bringing together our founders, veteran activists, legal professionals, academics, HIV clinicians, government officials and various allies. The night vigil is followed by a symbolic march to the Constitutional Court, to pledge our support for it defending and protecting the constitutional rights of people living with HIV, TB and all public healthcare users in South Africa.

A potential cut to PEPFAR funding – that risked derailing the national HIV response – is averted. The turnaround is a victory for people living with HIV, as critical resources will be restored. The planned funding cut had been prompted counter-intuitively following poor performance in South Africa’s HIV programme – where system failures have resulted in substantial numbers of people stopping lifesaving and lifelong HIV treatment.

TAC and allies storm the corporate stall of big Pharma company Johnson & Johnson at the South African AIDS Conference to demand they urgently drop the price of bedaquiline—a lifesaving treatment for drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB)—in South Africa and across the world.

TAC works to design and establish the world’s largest community-led monitoring system. Engagements take place with the health department to get access to sites. Survey tools are developed, tested, and refined. The teams needed are imagined, recruited, and trained. Clinics begin to be assessed.

Ritshidze is launched by TAC and the PLHIV Sector. Meaning “Saving Our Lives” in TshiVenda, Ritshidze is a new model of community-led monitoring developed to hold both the South African government and international donors like PEPFAR accountable, to improve overall HIV and TB service delivery. Ritshidze is the largest community-led monitoring system in the world.

The “People’s COP20” demands that PEPFAR funding goes towards funding frontline staff and community healthcare workers to reduce waiting times and ensure better re-engagement in care, as well as other measures like longer ARV refills and community collection points to make it easier for people to stay on treatment.

TAC protests against the Eastern Cape Department of Health’s failure to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. At this point, the coronavirus has wreaked havoc in Nelson Mandela Bay clinics and local obstetric wards, some of which closed after nurses either contracted Covid-19 or went into isolation while waiting for their test results. TAC leads a campaign to #FireMECGomba, who is removed within two weeks.

Treatment literacy moves with the times as Modern ART for South Africa is launched. TAC & HIV i-Base create the Modern ART app as a way for people living with HIV to access the latest information about their treatment right on their phones. New paper based resources are also rolled out at community activation across the country.

The “People’s COP21” demands that PEPFAR funding is flatlined and not reduced, that the commitments made by PEPFAR to fund 20,000 supplemental frontline health workers is carried out, that PEPFAR partners implement initiatives to make it easier for people living with HIV to stay on treatment, and to ensure friendly and appropriate services for people who use drugs, sex workers, and LGBTQIA+ communities at the clinic level.

The first edition of Ritshidze State of Health reports are developed using data collected through community-led monitoring. They are released at community meetings across 7 provinces, where duty bearers hear first hand the issues impacting people living with HIV, members of key populations, and other public healthcare users. The health department comes to rely on these reports to assess the state of services being provided in their provinces.

Dr Zweli Mkhize resigns as Minister of Health following the evidence against him in the Digital Vibes saga – where the irregular award of a R150 million communications contract was found by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to have improperly benefited him and his family.

TAC launches the 2nd People’s Health Manifesto to demand accountability from politicians in the run up to elections. Political parties are asked to answer 12 questions on healthcare. Public dialogues are held in all provinces to put these questions directly to political parties to respond.

TAC marches to the Union Buildings to demand that government introduce strict measures to prevent corruption, and prosecute all those responsible for the theft of public funds meant for the provision of healthcare.

Court proceedings finally begin against former MEC of Health Brian Hlongwa and six other co-accused for gross financial misconduct and corruption. They are accused of redirecting R1.2 billion from the Gauteng Department of Health between 2006 and 2009. Hlongwa was serving as MEC for Health during that time.

The People’s COP22 comes at a moment of deep reckoning. The world has emerged from two years of the worst of Covid-19 and one of the key lessons to be learnt is that health systems must urgently find ways to be adaptive, resilient and innovative enough to withstand multiple burdens and new crises.

TAC’s national congress resolves to build a stronger TAC to realise the right of everyone – including people living with HIV, people who use drugs, sex workers, LGBTQIA+ communities, and migrants – to health and healthcare services in a time of multiple crises.

Given that the majority of people who use drugs, sex workers, and LGBTQIA+ community members use public clinics, the People’s COP23 demands that PEPFAR focus on making clinic services safer, friendlier, and more appropriate for members of key populations – as well as to listen to our ongoing demands to stop punishing people living with HIV for missing appointments and make it easier for them to stay on treatment by giving longer refills, and letting more people collect ARVs outside of clinics.

The 3rd edition of Ritshidze”s provincial and district State of Health reports reveal ongoing dysfunction in our clinics that causes people to stop taking their HIV treatment, or to avoid going to collect HIV prevention. The litany of problems include long waitings times, lost files, overcongestion, unfriendliness and even punishment, and too few people living with HIV getting longer ARV refills or getting to use easier collection points outside the clinic. Migrants, people who use drugs, sex workers, and the LGBTQIA+ community continue to face particularly hostile conditions, and at times are denied care altogether. The damning evidence is released at district level community meetings across the country.

TAC demands that President Ramaphosa calls upon Uganda President Museveni to repeal deadly anti-homosexuality laws, during a session at the South African AIDS Conference. The anti-human rights legislation signed in Uganda, is a deadly attack on queer Ugandans’ human rights to life and health.

Ritshidze survey of nearly 14,000 people using drugs, sex workers, & LGBTQIA+ community members exposes ongoing crisis in public health system.

TAC and the TB Accountability Consortium march to the National Department of Health to reignite calls for the government to declare the TB epidemic a national public health emergency. With more than 54,000 people dying annually – 31,000 of them people living with HIV – and an estimated 280,000 getting TB each year, TB remains a significant public health threat in South Africa. 

Ritshidze releases 4th edition of provincial and district State of Health reports highlighting where the good and the bad of the primary healthcare system in South Africa. While challenges persist and performance across district varies, the data show that the cycle of gathering evidence and engaging with duty bearers on the results is seeing positive changes in the local health system.

The United States government issued work stop orders on foreign assistance, including PEPFAR programmes, heavily disrupting HIV prevention and treatment services in the country.

TAC gathers testimonies from community members struggling to access HIV treatment and prevention, to expose the impact of the United States funding cuts.

Dozens of clinics in Gauteng become “hotspots” of xenophobic vigilante action, where individuals have been blocking entry to patients who cannot produce South African identity documents, including foreign nationals and South Africans without identity documents.

TAC, MSF, SECTION27, & Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia (KAAX) launch an application at the South Gauteng High Court seeking immediate intervention to end the obstruction at dozens of clinics across Gauteng, that has resulted in many migrants and South African’s without identity documents being turned away and denied healthcare.

Landmark judgment handed down by the Gauteng High Court ordering the state to take immediate and decisive action to end the obstruction of access to public healthcare facilities in Gauteng.

Lenacapavir (LEN) is rolled out in South Africa. This is an important step towards ensuring access to long acting PrEP options that have the potential to help end HIV transmission in South Africa and beyond.