Cry For AIDS Drugs
South Africans demand AIDS treatment
To combat the AIDS epidemic the South African government wants to import cheap generic copies of expensive drugs. But multinational pharmaceutical companies are aggressively defending their patents. The dispute is enormously important for all developing countries. It raises questions about the morality of pharmaceutical giants making profits from overpricing life saving drugs, when millions of lives are at stake.
One in 10 of South Africa's population is now HIV-positive. Despite the fact that over 400, 000 South Africans have died of AIDS to date, president Thabo Mbeki previously denied that combating the epidemic is a national priority. A mother with HIV makes a plea to the president she helped elect : "We do not have to die, there is a chance not to die because they say there is a medicine." This film captures the heartache of those stricken by the disease, and encapsulates the tragedy of mothers who know they are dying as they try to prepare their young children to be orphaned. Why is this tragedy is being allowed to spread, when there is so much more the government and the world can do to help?
Produced by Hedgehog Productions
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