The nine members of the National Association of People Living with Aids (Napwa) who staged a sit-in earlier on Monday at the Midrand offices of pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp Dohme (MSD) are to return to the offices on Tuesday.
The demonstrators were demanding that MSD reduce the price of anti-retrovirals for HIV-positive people.
Napwa’s deputy-director Thanduxolo Doro said that the demonstrators would return even though MSD’s chief executive had phoned the group and requested to meet with them.
”We have not yet responded to the request because we want the meeting to line up with our meetings with other pharmaceutical companies.
”The other thing we are still trying to put into their understanding is that they must call us with the commitment that they will respond positively, at least to some of our demands,” Doro said.
Seventy-eight Napwa members have been arrested since the start of the group’s Black Easter campaign and have appeared in court charged with malicious damage to property, trespassing and holding illegal demonstrations.
They were released on their own recognisances pending further investigation.
Napwa claims some 100 000 members throughout South Africa and has long been pressuring pharmaceutical companies to provide ARVs free of charge.
”We see pharmaceutical companies as the main institution that can save our world from HIV/Aids by donating and subsidising treatment for the benefit of the poor,” Doro said.
Government estimates put the number of people living with HIV/Aids in South Africa at 5,5-million. – Sapa