29 – Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian organisation, begins importing a cheap generic version of patented AIDS drugs into South Africa in defiance of South Africa's patent laws.
Sivan Pillay, Ed Jordan, Nkhensani Mangani and Karl Anderson are appointed as the first judges of reality show Coca Cola Popstars, which yields two new pop groups, winners 101 and runners-up Afro Z.
April
25 – Mark Shuttleworth becomes the second self-funded spaceflight participant.
27 – Two South African Air ForceOryx helicopters, flying from the South African Antarctic research ship Agulhas, takes emergency food supplies and evacuates 21 Russian scientists from the German-owned Magdalena Oldendorff which has been trapped in ice off Antarctica since 16 June.
July
15 – Nelson Mandela calls on government and business leaders worldwide to find ways to provide access to treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS.
August
8 – The government announces the approval of an anti-retroviral roll-out plan.
9 – Ed Fagan leads a $50bn class action suit by a few apartheid-era victims against international firms and banks who profited from dealings with the apartheid government.
25 – The Medicines Control Council threatens to de-register Nevirapine unless further studies and appropriate documentation can show its efficacy in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
September
15 – Johan Pretorius, Boeremag member, is arrested and charged when he is found with a truckload of weapons and explosives in Lichtenburg.
20 – Boeremag members Dirk Hanekom and Henk van Zyl are arrested in Memel, Free State, but only Hanekom is charged.
10 – President of South AfricaThabo Mbeki states that AIDS drugs are dangerously toxic to people and questions whether HIV or poverty is the true cause of Aids.
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