Monday 17 February

Introduction

It is a terrible irony that the need for an effective and ongoing response to the AIDS epidemic will be one of the defining legacies left to the ANC by a President who tried to deny the existence of HIV. It is also ironic that the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), an organization that Mbeki once branded as ‘flag carrier for pharmaceutical companies’, is heralded one of the few organizations that was able to force a complete overturn policy in an area defined and defended by himself, during his Presidency. However, rather than looking back, this chapter attempts to draw some lessons from TAC and the Mbeki era. It aims to inform how both government and civil society (hopefully together) approach AIDS, as well as health more broadly, during the Zuma government.

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