Health Justice Initiative - HJI

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: ashoka.org/en-us/fellow #AshokaFellow #EveryoneAChangemaker #AshokaAfrica @AshokaAfrica

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 Promises of broad access have been replaced by cautious scarcity management 4/ The numbers tell the story.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

📣📣📣WE ARE 6 !!!📣📣📣

📣📣📣 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.

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: buff.ly/JWnsgbx #AshokaFellow #HealthJustice

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

@NdifunaUkwazi @ReclaimCT Congratulations on this incredible outcome NU - a decade in the making. 💐🙌🏾✊🏾 #SpatialApartheid #Inequality

PRESS STATEMENT: LANDMARK CONSTITUTIONAL COURT VICTORY FOR SPATIAL HOUSING JUSTICE mailchi.mp/nu.org.za/tafe…

Forward, Onward @NdifunaUkwazi ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾 Go, go, go. Damning damning judgment by the highest court in SA v City of CT and WC Prov.

@AshokaAfrica Congratulation to our Founder and Director, Fatima.

💊 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.

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: ashoka.org/en-us/fellow #AshokaFellow #EveryoneAChangemaker #AshokaAfrica @AshokaAfrica

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.

Watch: @_HassanF HJI Director on @SABCNews unpacking Gilead's self-created scarcity and the allocation of doses in the national LEN-LA roll out. #lenacapavir

The President should challenge Gilead's monopoly power and self created scarcity. Here is why: healthjusticeinitiative.org.za/2026/06/04/lau…

@GovernmentZA healthjusticeinitiative.org.za/2026/06/04/lau…

📸 President Cyril Ramaphosa arrives at Lilian Ngoyi Stadium in Secunda, Mpumalanga, for the official national launch of Lenacapavir, an innovative long-acting injectable for HIV prevention. The President was received by Mpumalanga Premier Mandla Ndlovu and Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi as South Africa takes a major step forward in strengthening HIV prevention and expanding access to life-changing healthcare innovations. #Lenacapavir4HIVPrevention #Lenacapavir #GovZAUpdates

We did the work, we don't get enough of the drug, nor on time. READ more here- we are being asked to prematurely celebrate scarcity and pharma control over lenacapavir - @asia_ilse @tianjohnson

@TAC @HealthGAP @MSF_southafrica @Afri_Alliance @Sisonke_ZA @ABIAIDS @JustTreatment @TAGTeam_Tweets @PrEP4AllNow @Public_Citizen healthjusticeinitiative.org.za/2026/06/04/lau…

4 June 2026, Thursday ______ Launch of Lenacapavir in South Africa for HIV prevention: South Africa Helped Create Lenacapavir, Gilead Should Not Decide Who Gets It – SA Civil Society Groups