South African court forces government to rescind strike dismissal notices

A High Court judge in South Africa granted an urgent interdict to the Treatment Action Campaign, the largest AIDS activist group in the country, compelling the government to rescind dismissal notices it had issued to striking nurses. The nurses would otherwise have been staffing several clinics in Cape Town's poorest areas.

These clinics, some operated and helped by the humanitarian group Médicins Sans Frontières, provide antiretroviral treatment for local people with HIV as well as treatment for tuberculosis. Any break in the treatment of these two conditions leads to resistance and consequent failure of the …