December 4.
Exactly 20 years ago, Hazel Tau became the first of 11 complainants to bring a ground-breaking complaint to the Competition Commission, alleging that the price of drugs to treat HIV/ Aids in South Africa was excessive. So excessive that South Africa’s price ranged from 540% to 1 543% more than the best-priced generic available in the world. In 2002, the cost for a month of antiretroviral drugs that people needed to keep themselves alive was about R4 500 (Heywood, 2002).
