Thousands of South African AIDS activists marched on parliament on Wednesday, vowing to step up their campaign for free HIV drugs in the country hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic.

South Africa has an estimated 5 million people infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS - the highest caseload in the world. Activists say as many as 900 South Africans die every day of AIDS-related causes.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is demanding state hospitals treat 200,000 AIDS sufferers by 2006, and accuses President Thabo Mbeki’s government of stalling the provision of life-prolonging anti-retrovirals (ARVs).

“It is time that our president wakes up,” TAC chairman Zackie Achmat told a crowd of more than 2,000 singing and cheering supporters, including doctors and nurses who say the government is hobbling the AIDS fight.

TAC officials said they planned to rekindle a public protest campaign seeking to force wider distribution of ARVs in the public sector, saying South Africa does not have much time left to turn the tide against the disease.

“This year is the make-or-break year for the ARV programme,” TAC national manager Nathan Geffen told Reuters.

“If we don’t get a substantial increase in the numbers of people on ARVs this year, then the programme will be in serious trouble,” he said.

The government bowed to local and international pressure in 2003 and announced a national programme to distribute drugs in state hospitals.

But while Mbeki promised in February last year that 53,000 people would be on treatment in the public health sector by March 2005, TAC says that by the end of 2004 only 27,000 people were on treatment and that roll-out is painfully slow.

“This injustice exists because there is insufficient political leadership to make the programme a success,” the group said in a statement.

Mbeki, frequently accused by critics of moving too slowly against the epidemic, said in his state of the nation speech to parliament last week that South Africa’s AIDS plan was amongst the best in the world and was being implemented with “greater vigour” - although he gave no details.