For Immediate Release: 22 APRIL 2003
Sharonann Lynch, +1-212-674-9598

AIDS ACTIVISTS DEMONSTRATE AT SOUTH AFRICA EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

GLOBAL DAY OF PROTEST TO DEMAND SOUTH AFRICA GOVERNMENT PROVIDE AIDS TREATMENT TO MILLIONS LIVING WITH HIV IN SOUTH AFRICA

WHEN: 1 PM, Thursday, April 24 2003, march and rally as part of global day of protest called by the largest AIDS activist group in South Africa, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) to pressure the South African government for a national HIV/AIDS treatment plan.

WHO: Hundreds of AIDS activists demonstrating against South African government's refusal to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to people living with AIDS in South Africa. Demonstration co-sponsors include ACT UP, African Services Committee, Student Global AIDS Campaign. Speakers to be announced.

WHERE: Stepping off at 1 PM from Massachusetts Avenue and California Street NW, Washington, D.C, rallying in front of the South African Embassy at 3051 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.

WHAT: Global day of protest demanding the South African government implement a national HIV/AIDS treatment plan to provide life-sustaining AIDS medicines to people living with HIV/AIDS.

* Activists will march to the embassy from Massachusetts and California Avenue NW, chanting, playing drums, waving "Stop Medical Apartheid" flags, holding oversized photos of people living with HIV in South Africa calling for the South Africa government to "Treat the People."

* The demonstrators will carry with them 600 pairs of shoes during the march and deliver them to the embassy to represent the 600 people who die of HIV/AIDS each day in South Africa.

* The crowd will sing AIDS protest songs, formerly anti-apartheid protest songs, re-written by AIDS activists in South Africa to call for government action and an end to pharmaceutical price-gouging.

* "People in Mourning" bearing black shrouds and holding lilies will deliver a memorandum to embassy representatives in support of Treatment Action Campaign's demands for a national HIV/AIDS treatment program.

WHY: The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a crisis that threatens South Africa's reconstruction and development. Up to five million people are infected with HIV and AIDS is now killing approximately 600 people every day. For the last four years, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has led a grassroots movement calling for the government to implement a national HIV/AIDS treatment program. The vast majority of people in South Africa have no access to the medicines that have transformed AIDS in wealthy countries into something approaching a chronic manageable illness. The Ministry of Health and the national government refuse to adopt a policy to make AIDS drugs available to its citizens on a widespread scale and recently, have taken measures to block funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria which would finance antiretroviral therapy for South Africans living in one of the provinces hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, Kwazulu-Natal as part of $41-million grant.

The South African government's own research has confirmed that HIV is the leading cause of death among women between the ages of 15 and 39, of maternal mortality, and is a major factor exacerbating poverty. The epidemic is expected by the United States National Intelligence Council to balloon to 100 million infections worldwide by the end of the decade.

For information on world-wide events as part of the Global Day of Protest, go to www.tac.org.za or contact the Treatment Action Campaign spokesperson, Vuyani Jacobs, telephone: 011 27 73 209 3606, email: vuyani@tac.org.za

#30#