At an age when women in the west are embarking on families and careers, Refilwe and Nokuthula have begun the business of dying. They live in the East Rand suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa, where one in five is estimated to be harbouring the virus that will kill them. Across Africa and the developing world millions more will die of diseases that are treatable in the west, such as diarrhoea, meningitis, malaria, TB and Aids. The hospitals do what they can, but their best efforts are a sticking plaster on a haemorrhage. The western drugs they need are unaffordable.
Life is priced too high.
Thirty-five miles away in Pretoria, a legal battle critical to the fate of many more women like Refilwe and Nokuthula, their men and their children, is about to begin. The case is an attempt to block South Africa from importing cheap medicines. The drug companies have spent three years and millions of pounds preparing the case. They have retained virtually every patent lawyer in South Africa. On March 5 their barristers will try to stop the South African government from buying the medicines its people so badly need from countries where the prices are lowest, on the grounds that it is infringing world trade agreements.