Founded on 10 December 1998 in Cape Town, South Africa, The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) advocates for increased access to treatment, care and support services for people living with HIV and campaigns to reduce new HIV infections.

With more than 16,000 members, 267 branches and 72 full time staff members, TAC has become the leading civil society force behind comprehensive health care services for people living with HIV&AIDS in South Africa.

Since 1998, TAC has held government accountable for health care service delivery; campaigned against official AIDS denialism; challenged the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies to make treatment more affordable and cultivated community leadership on HIV and AIDS. Our efforts have resulted in many life-saving interventions, including the implementation of country-wide mother-to-child transmission prevention and antiretroviral treatment programmes. For our efforts TAC has received world-wide acclaim and numerous international accolades, including a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. On 30 August 2006 the New York Times named TAC, “the world’s most effective AIDS group”.

 

TAC’s Core Programmes

• Prevention and Treatment Literacy (PTL): The PTL programme provides high quality training and public-health education on the science of HIV and TB prevention and treatment to patients and partner organisations. TAC’s PTL programme also monitors access to essential HIV and TB services and treatment at a facility-level in the districts in which we operate. 
• Community Health Advocacy (CHA): TAC’s CHA programme strengthens awareness of and advocates for greater access to comprehensive HIV and TB prevention, treatment, care and support services, including social referral services, at a grass-roots community level. The CHA programme also provides leadership and advocacy training to people living with HIV/AIDS, communities, partners and individuals in order to encourage and support social and community mobilisation aimed at increasing access to and uptake of HIV and TB-related health services. In addition TAC’s CHA programme has recently begun to intensify its women’s rights work by leading campaigns to end violence against women and mobilising communities around women’s rights. 
• Policy, Communications and Research (PCR): TAC’s PCR department is responsible for: monitoring and engaging with health policy processes at the national, provincial and district level; disseminating information on the science of HIV and TB through the production of high-quality, accessible public-health education materials; communicating developments in HIV and TB policy and science to TAC’s staff and membership base; and, liaising with media to promote TAC’s advocacy and campaigns work. 
   

Together TAC’s programmes facilitate access to comprehensive HIV and TB prevention, treatment, care and support services; provide scientific literacy training on prevention and treatment on an increasingly mass scale; coordinate, distil and disseminate scientific research and policy developments on HIV&AIDS and TB at the community grass-roots level ; and organize and advocate with member communities to mobilise and take up issues of health policy and service delivery.

 

TAC’s Strategic Objectives

The TAC's objectives are described in the organisation's Constitution and are as follows:

• Campaign for equitable access to affordable treatment for all people with HIV/AIDS.
• Campaign for and support the prevention and elimination of all new HIV infections.
• Promote and sponsor legislation to ensure equal access to social services for and equal treatment of all people with HIV/AIDS.
• Challenge by means of litigation, lobbying, advocacy and all forms of legitimate social mobilisation, any barrier or obstacle, including unfair discrimination, that limits access to treatment for HIV/AIDS in the private and public sector.
• Educate, promote and develop an understanding and commitment within all communities of developments in HIV/AIDS treatment.
• Campaign for access to affordable and quality health care for all people in South Africa.
• Train and develop a representative and effective leadership of people living with HIV/AIDS on the basis of equality and non-discrimination irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, sex, socio-economic status, nationality, marital status or any other ground.
• Campaign for an effective regional and global network comprising of organisations with similar aims and objectives.

 

TAC's Campaigns

TAC campaigns for access to medicines for all people with HIV, to prevent new HIV infections and for a better public health system. We run a large treatment literacy programme, which provides scientifically accurate information to people with or at risk of HIV, their family, friends and supporters on the prevention and treatment of HIV. We also run a women's health campaign, an international solidarity campaign (whose current focus is on health in Zimbabwe) and a people with HIV mobilisation campaign. TAC has a policy, communications and research department, whose aim is to develop and provide scientifically accurate information about the epidemic to all people.

• Resources for Health Campaign
• HIV & TB
• Heywood on Health
• HIV/AIDS National Strategic Plan (NSP)
• Women in Multimedia
• TAC Newsletter, Documents and Statements Archive
• Prisons court case
• SANDF HIV Discrimination Case
• Debunking AIDS Denialism
• Wrongs of Fath
• Xenophobia