Fighting For Funds: A New Era Of Hiv Activism

Sisonke Msimang was a vocal critic of the Aids denialism of the Mbeki era, supporting the health advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign in what became a landmark legal victory in 2002 that secured access to lifesaving treatment for HIV-positive pregnant women that stopped them from infecting their babies.

She is one of 29 health rights activists featured in the Health and Human Rights Oral History Project , which launched in late March, just as the world scrambles to count the costs of the Trump administrations drastic cuts to funding of HIV programmes and research.

This time the fight is different the government needs to cough up an estimated R2.82-billion for this financial year to sustain its fight against the virus. Those who were around for South Africas last HIV battle think it is time to get back to basics.

In todays newsletter , Mia Malan discusses the need for renewed HIV activism as Pepfar cuts threaten lives. Sign up for our newsletter now .

So the US funding cuts happened, and I was looking for the noise! I was asking the other day, where are my people, why arent they shouting? says Sisonke Msimang, the South African writer and political scientist.

Msimang was a vocal critic of the Aids denialism of the Mbeki era, supporting the health advocacy organisation Treatment Action Campaign TAC in what became a landmark legal victory in 2002 that secured access to lifesaving treatment for HIV-positive pregnant women that stopped them from infecting their babies.

She is also one of 29 health rights activists featured in the Health and Human Rights Oral History Project , which launched in late March just as the world scrambles to count the costs in dollars and in lives of the Trump administrations drastic cuts to funding of HIV programmes and research studies.

In South Africa, more than half of HIV and TB projects funded by the US governments Aids fund, Pepfar, closed down at the end of February , or are in the process of closing down. The programmes that are still running , only have budgets until the end of September the end of the US financial year.