CRY FOR AIDS DRUGS

March 2001

10’35

A Hedgehog Production by Marika Griehsel and Simon Stanford

TEXT

00.38

A mass demonstration outside the South African parliament targets international pharmaceutical companies. As well as making the wider moral argument on the availability of cheap AIDS drugs, these sufferers are fighting an internal enemy. Despite the fact that over 400 000 South Africans have died of AIDS to date, president Thabo Mbeki has consistently denied that combating the epidemic is a national priority.

01.04

SYNC. Sipho Mtathi

” There is much more money spent on everything else but life for people, not just for people living with HIV, and therefore we are demanding that the government spend less on arms and more money gets put in to the health care infrastructure. ”

01.22

SYNC. Gertrud Uiki

”We are not taken seriously, the government does not take us seriously. They think we are playing. We are not playing. This is serious because we leave our children behind. Who will look after them when we are gone.

TEXT

01.36

Zama and Zandi’s mother and her political activist husband took to the streets during the 1980’s to protest against apartheid. The twins’ father died of aids, last November leaving his HIV positive widow to bring up the children. She no longer has the energy nor the resources to join the protestors, but is bitter towards Mbeki.

01.58

SYNC Nomphumelelo Kwezi Mbuyabo –HIVinfected mother:

” He ( Mbeki ) knows where we come from. We were there to help him to become the president so why can he not help us to be healthy. We are South Africans so he must help us. We do not have to die, there is a chance not to die because they say there is a medicine.”

TEXT

02.23

Her twins are HIV negative, saved, like thousands of others, through a short course of anti-retroviral drugs given during labour. A project which was implemented by the Cape provincial government in defiance of national government policy. But the stigma attached to AIDS is still so great, neighbours turn on sufferers in their midst.

02.44

SYNC: Nomphumelelo

”If they find out that you are HIV +, they do not treat you like a human being they think you are poisonous. ”

TEXT

02.53

Now national policy, the drugs-in-pregnancy project costs $5 US a head. But the state doesn’t routinely give the "triple therapy" drug cocktail to those with HIV.

03.04

SYNC: Charlene Smith – journalist

” If there is a country that knowingly fails to help and protect its people when they are dying of a treatable illness, then we should consider sanctions against that country.”

03.17

TEXT:

Vague future plans to provide medication aren’t enough. About 4,2-million South Africans are HIV+ and seven million are expected to die from the disease within a decade.

03.30

SYNK: Dr Asvat Covadia – paediatrician

” We are actually not seeing the whole picture. There are many more thousands of children that are out there who have minimal symptoms or no symptoms at all, they are like a time bomb waiting to explode. At some stage the disease is going to manifest and they will be coming in to the hospitals in large numbers.”

03.56

TEXT:

Many South Africans have denied the existence of AIDS, a situation which is beginning to change as the death toll mounts, even among children. The festivities at this Johannesburg school are in celebration of a little boy’s birthday. Nkosi Johnson the outspoken child Aids activist is turning 11. But the boy, who spoke out in front of the world, now lies comatose at the home of his foster mother.

04.24

SYNC: Gail Johanson – Nkosi’s foster mother

” I think what Nkosi has done , is that he has given aids a face in Africa, not only in South Africa. He is called the prince of Africa he seems to have created almost a unification is this country and he has been able to be an outlet for emotions.”

04.48

TEXT:

Nkosi was 2 when his mother died, his father’s whereabouts are unknown. His foster mother couldn’t afford expensive anti-retroviral drugs, but has provided love, stability and good nutrition for her son and other children.

05.03

SYNK: Gail Johnson

” If I can make a difference, I will make a difference. Nkosi wants us to provide care for 15 000 people by the end of 2001, I will work towards that because it is my commitment to my son. ”

TEXT:

05.18

For Gail Johnson, Nkosi’s Haven, a home for HIV positive mothers and their children, is just the beginning. It will require many more similar homes, to provide for the tens of thousands of women who carry the burden of supporting families infected with the virus.

SYNK: Jane Mwasi- manager, Nkosis Heaven

05.35

” Most of our women are from an abusive situation

And they do not stay in that situation because they like that, they stay because they need to need a roof over their head. Most of the women only find out when they go to for a test when they get pregnant, but men do not go for test

And mainly the blame is put on the female and that is why the rate is so high. ”

TEXT:

06.08

The shelter can only survive through donations and international support. Here mothers can comfort each other and share the burden of knowing that their children will be orphaned. Nkosi’s wish is that HIV + mothers and their children do not have to face the threat of premature separation. AIDS will orphan an estimated 4 million children by the year 2005.

SYNC: Feroza Mohamed - HIV+ mother

06.33

” This is the only place that accommodates mothers and children and secondly it is keeping us safe because you are vulnerable by the time you are positive, you have no money, nowhere to go and you end up in a another man’s place and you end up reinfecting your self again.”

TEXT:

06.53

Feroza and her son, Ismael, both carry the HIV virus, she is very ill, he is yet to show symptoms. Medication, which would allow them to lead normal lives, is available. Without it she is struggling to hold on.

SYNC: Feroza

07.08

”I try to talk to him and he does not take it easily. He says he will pray for me so that I must be better and sometimes he makes me feel I do need him, but he needs me more. He encourages me to carry on living because without him I would have given up a long time ago. When I look at him I think ‘Oh God, I cannot leave this poor child like this’. I know he will be cared for but it will not be the same without his mum near him.”

SYNc: Jane – föreståndare, Nkosis Heaven

07.43

” The sad part of HIV is that there is no reverse. There’s no doubt about it once you’re positive. That is why some men cannot stand to live with it after being diagnosed. They commit suicide. The females think of their kids, that’s why they don’t commit suicide. They think ‘my child would think I have been a coward’. They want to die leaving their kids in happy hands.”

TEXT:

(What shall we do? what shall we do?)

08.28

´´What shall we do`` sing these women, bravely confronting society with their illness.

Unity voiced in song, just as it was during the struggle against apartheid.

To provide effective drugs for an HIV + South African currently costs about $1000 US a year, an impossible sum for the state and most individuals. But alternatives are available, in the form of generic copies of drugs manufactured by the major pharmaceutical companies. These companies are aggressively protecting their patents, fighting a court action to prevent the South African government from importing and distributing these drugs.

09.07

SYNC: Dr Asvat Covadia

”We have an internal enemy, inside our borders today as I speak, the children around me here have an internal enemy. About one fifth of our population is succumbing to this internal enemy. What are we doing about this; we are worrying about the potential external threat. If this were an alien force, an alien country attacking one fifth of our population on one part of our border, the army, the whole country would be up in arms. ”

09.37

SYNK: Charlene Smith – journalist

” You have a responsibility, A - as a mother, B - as a women, & C - as a South African. How can we watch when babies are dying, when children and women are being raped and keep quiet about it because if we keep quiet about this, somehow we are accountable.”

TEXT

09.57

If the government wins the legal case it could import drugs from India or Brazil. Intellectual property rights don’t address human misery. Nomphumelelo, which means success, is just 26. She’s dying, and will leave behind two daughters.

SYNC: Nomphumelelo Kwezi

10.14

” We are a family because we are four. To build a house with three bedrooms, one for one girl, one for the other, and one for us is what we dreamt of, good things like growing up in a family. It’s difficult to talk about that, because it can not happen.”

END