Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. Hello you're listening to the BBC World Service and now witness history with me Bob Howard.

Today I'm taking you back to South Africa in the 1990s.

This is the story of how a nation took on big farmer,

the international drugs companies and won.

At the end of the 1990s, tens of millions of people across Africa had been infected with HIV and in South Africa hundreds of thousands of people were dying from AIDS.

They were demanding cheaper drugs, but the big

pharmaceutical companies didn't want to play ball. We ask you one thing. Join our

hands to fight the drug companies. My name is Barra Parasi.

I joined the Department of Health in 1995.

The issue which preoccupied most ordinary South Africans who were ill

was the cost of buying drugs.

New drugs, like the ones used for fighting HIV,

were relatively expensive.

Most of our medicines were imported.

The bulk of the drugs were brought into the country at very high prices.

Most new drugs are manufactured under patent and can only be produced with the approval of the companies which had developed them.

That meant cheaper generic versions of these drugs,

...