Health Justice Initiative - HJI

Dedicated law & policy unit focusing on intersection between health rights, inequality & justice.
@[email protected]
[email protected]

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

JUST RELEASED: 📢📢📢

Health Rights Litigation Report: Summary of Health Rights Litigation in South Africa, 1994 - 2026

LINK:
https://t.co/iQwACj8gOg

[Or scan the QR code below]

With:
@PHMSA1
CHASE-SA

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

JUST RELEASED: 📢📢📢

Health Rights Litigation Report: Summary of Health Rights Litigation in South Africa, 1994 - 2026

LINK:
https://t.co/iQwACj8gOg

[Or scan the QR code below]

With:
@PHMSA1
CHASE-SA

[Spotlight @SpotlightNSP]

Testing more people who report TB symptoms at public sector clinics is one of the most effective things we can do to reduce rates of TB disease and death, according to a major new modelling study.

https://t.co/5MjDte0URr

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

📣Just in📣

NEW PAPER:
The Limits of Material Interest: Third Party Standing and Public Interest Participation in the Competition Tribunal – The case of Roche

LINK:
https://t.co/0hw9yTXyUe

With: POWER LAW AFRICA

@comptrib

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

JUST IN📄🚨

The fight over NHI Act is in SA's courts with at least 10 cases challenging it!

HJI's NHI Case Explainer breaks down every case in plain language: https://t.co/GdmHTKMtJL

In HJI's NHI e‑Library you can access: Court documents, laws, policy docs, submissions & more!

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

JUST IN📄🚨

The fight over NHI Act is in SA's courts with at least 10 cases challenging it!

HJI's NHI Case Explainer breaks down every case in plain language: https://t.co/GdmHTKMtJL

In HJI's NHI e‑Library you can access: Court documents, laws, policy docs, submissions & more!

[African Alliance @Afri_Alliance]

1/ Today at #AIDS2026 along with @healthjusticein we presented our analysis of one of the most important HIV prevention breakthroughs of our generation - and one of its biggest ethical failures.

A Breakthrough Withheld: Power, Control and the Slow Rollout of Lenacapavir.

🧵👇

2/ Lenacapavir has the potential to transform HIV prevention.

But scientific innovation alone does not save lives.

Access does.

Our question was simple:

Has the rollout honoured the commitments made to the communities whose participation made this breakthrough possible?

3/ Our conclusion:

Not yet.

The evidence points to a managed retreat from the ambition that accompanied lenacapavir’s launch.

Promises of broad access have been replaced by cautious scarcity management

4/ The numbers tell the story.

• Licensing announced for 120 countries
• Initial focus on 18 priority countries
• By 2026, fewer than 12 countries had confirmed deliveries
• Available supply reaches only a tiny fraction of those who could benefit.

5/ In several countries, first-year supply represents less than 1% of estimated need.

A scientific breakthrough with global potential has begun with volumes too small to change the course of the epidemic.

6/ The language matters.

“Priority countries.”

“Phased rollout.”

“Early adopters.”

These terms can sound like orderly implementation.

In reality, they often describe the management of scarcity rather than equitable access.

7/ This is not simply a logistical problem.

It is an ethical one.

The communities that participated in research, carried the burden of HIV and contributed to scientific progress should not be the last to benefit at scale.

8/ Access cannot be an afterthought.

It must be designed before:
• clinical trials begin
• regulatory pathways are established
• commercial strategies are finalised.

Ethics must be built into product development- not retrofitted afterwards.

9/ We argue that governments, funders and manufacturers all have responsibilities.

Scientific success should be measured not only by efficacy in clinical trials, but by whether the people who need innovation can actually receive it.

10/ Our recommendations include:

✅ Expand non-exclusive licensing
✅ Commit to transparent supply allocations
✅ Establish enforceable delivery timelines
✅ Involve affected communities in access decisions
✅ Embed equitable access into future product development from day one.

11/ Lenacapavir has shown what science can achieve.

Now the challenge is whether politics, financing and intellectual property systems can match that achievement.

Without equitable access, innovation risks reinforcing the very inequalities it was meant to address.

12/ Thank you to our co-authors, in-country contributors and community partners across Africa and beyond whose evidence and lived experience informed this work.

The conversation doesn’t end with this presentation.

The next breakthrough must not be another breakthrough withheld.

#AIDS2026 #HIV #Lenacapavir #GlobalHealth #HealthEquity #AccessToMedicines #IntellectualProperty #PrEP @Bhekisisa_MG @HealthJusticeIn @HealthZA @GileadSciences @AfricanAmata @MedsPatentPool @MRCza @AASciences

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

📣📣📣WE ARE 6 !!!📣📣📣

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

📣📣📣WE ARE 6 !!!📣📣📣

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

📣📣📣

Congratulations to the team at @NdifunaUkwazi

A critical and momentous Judgment by the highest Court in the land on spatial apartheid in Cape Town.

🔍⏳️📄

Forward, Onward.

[Ndifuna Ukwazi @NdifunaUkwazi]

PRESS STATEMENT: LANDMARK CONSTITUTIONAL COURT VICTORY FOR SPATIAL HOUSING JUSTICE

https://t.co/2c6ssazHxT

[Ashoka Africa @AshokaAfrica]

Welcome Fatima Hassan, founder of the Health Justice Initiative, as an Ashoka Fellow!

Fatima is advancing health justice by challenging barriers to equitable access to life-saving medicines.

Read more: https://t.co/MPnckqIC1V

#AshokaFellow #HealthJustice

[Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) @EElawcentre]

Today, we celebrate a landmark victory for spatial justice, equality, and the right to adequate housing.

Congratulations to our comrades at @NdifunaUkwazi and @ReclaimCT, and everyone who has worked tirelessly on the Tafelberg matter. ⚖️

After a long road to justice, today's Constitutional Court judgment marks a significant victory against spatial inequality, affirming that well-located public land must be used to advance transformation, inclusion, and the constitutional rights of those historically excluded from our cities.

This victory reflects the persistence of communities, activists, and public interest organisations who have fought to ensure that justice is not only promised, but realised. ✊🏿 Amandla! @equal_education

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

@NdifunaUkwazi @ReclaimCT Congratulations on this incredible outcome NU - a decade in the making.

💐🙌🏾✊🏾

#SpatialApartheid
#Inequality

[Ndifuna Ukwazi @NdifunaUkwazi]

PRESS STATEMENT: LANDMARK CONSTITUTIONAL COURT VICTORY FOR SPATIAL HOUSING JUSTICE

https://t.co/2c6ssazHxT

[Fatima Hassan @_HassanF]

Forward, Onward @NdifunaUkwazi ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾

Go, go, go.

Damning damning judgment by the highest court in SA v City of CT and WC Prov.

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

@AshokaAfrica Congratulation to our Founder and Director, Fatima.

[Enabel @Enabel_Belgium]

💊 Medicines save lives, but millions still cannot access them.
🌍 Access to essential medicines is a human rights imperative.
At yesterday’s #TeamEurope & @TheLancet Commission seminar in Brussels, we reaffirmed the need for stronger partnerships and collective action to achieve health for all.

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

CONGRATULATIONS FATIMA! 🎉

Fatima is reimagining access to life-saving medicine by challenging the systems that treat essential healthcare as a privilege rather than a human right.

Read: https://t.co/9ufQGXZqDt

#AshokaFellow
#EveryoneAChangemaker
#AshokaAfrica

@AshokaAfrica

[Health Justice Initiative - HJI @HealthJusticeIn]

CONGRATULATIONS FATIMA! 🎉

Fatima is reimagining access to life-saving medicine by challenging the systems that treat essential healthcare as a privilege rather than a human right.

Read: https://t.co/9ufQGXZqDt

#AshokaFellow
#EveryoneAChangemaker
#AshokaAfrica

@AshokaAfrica

[SABC News @SABCNews]

WATCH | South African human rights lawyer Fatima Hassan says a small number of people and areas have been targeted for the circulation of the first batch of the HIV prevention injection Lenacapavir.